Until the Morning Comes
by Morning Lilies
Summary: On June 8, 2022, Wizarding Britain is shaken to its core by the greatest catastrophe since Voldemort's fall. The Potters, Weasleys, Malfoys, and Longbottoms, caught in the center, must sort out right from wrong, guilty from innocent, when to hold on, and when to let go, all as lives hang in the balance in the wake of the bombing of Knockturn Alley.
1. Wednesday - 6:05 AM

**A/N: The moment has finally arrived. Welcome, everybody, to my latest and greatest story. Well, my latest anyway. I've been promising to post it for months now, and here it is. I'll catch you at the end of the chapter so you don't have to listen to me blather on here, but this is indeed the story that's been called 'June 8' for ages. Figured I should pick a better title. I do hope it is both captivating and thrilling for you. (Disclaimer: I'm only universe-sitting. I don't own the place.)**

There was just one moment of warning. Like the heartbeat before a towering wave crashed down, everything seemed to slow. An overpowering scent of copper and acrid burning diffused the alley. A scruffy man with a grizzled gray beard paused, closing his eyes. A fat, yellow cat streaked from under a dustbin. A witch selling nasty-looking strings of what appeared to be human fingernails drew her tattered cloak up with a hiss and backed into a dark corner.

And then the world was ripped apart.

"…I report with… the greatest sorrow, regret, and horror… that on this day, June 8, 2022, devastation of a magnitude not felt in twenty-four years has once more rocked Britain's wizarding community. Earlier today, two explosions were set off in Knockturn Alley. Much of the alley was destroyed in the blasts, and cursed fires spread damages as far as Quality Quidditch Supplies to the North and the recently-opened Cry O' the Raven Talismans to the south in the adjacent Diagon Alley.

"As of this evening, there are thirteen confirmed casualties due to the explosions, twenty-one hospitalized at St. Mungo's in critical condition, and dozens more treated on-site for numerous injuries that, while not life-threatening, were quite severe. Many shopkeepers and residents of both Diagon and Knockturn Alleys have lost their homes, businesses, and hundreds of thousands of Galleons worth of inventory. Aurors are still assessing damages and collecting names of missing people.

"Reeling in the wake of this sudden and awful blow, most of you listening tonight are probably wondering why this had to happen. Who would do such a thing after so many years of peace? And what does it mean for the future? For these questions we have no answers. We wait for our Minister to speak in a formal address over the WWN at ten o'clock, bearing in mind that he, along with the head and deputy head of the Auror office, has been personally affected in this tragedy…."

_June 8, 2022, 6:05 A.M. _

Hannah and Neville's alarm went off at six o'clock. Neville groaned and banged a fist down on the top of it.

"We should get up," Hannah said sleepily, rolling over and burrowing deeper into her husband's arms.

"We should," he agreed, resting a cheek against the top of her head. Without opening his eyes he could see the trail of her long golden hair streaming across the crimson of the pillowcase, the powdery morning light settling over the blush of her cheeks. Even though gray was creeping into his hair like dust collecting and each time he looked into the mirror it seemed there was a new line to trace on his face, she hadn't aged a day since her thirtieth birthday.

"I've got to get to the pub," she mumbled. "Train's coming in today. It'll be busy."

"I've got to get to the school," he sighed. "Train's going out today. It'll be a madhouse."

"But it's nice here."

"Mmm, so nice."

"We could just… stay a little longer."

"Just a few minutes."

"Maybe," she twisted around in his arms. "Just a little more than a few minutes."

"You're terrible," he laughed against her lips. His hands came up to tangle in her long hair, running down her back like a fountain.

"But you're wonderful," she breathed, gasping as he pulled her tight against his chest.

The door was thrown open, bouncing against the wall with a crash.

"It's time for breakfast!" their six-year-old daughter sang, scrambling up on the foot of their bed. "I made orange juice."

Neville rolled away from his wife and groaned into his pillow. Hannah, laughing at him, sat up and drew their daughter onto her lap, blowing a raspberry against her rosy cheek. Miranda giggled gleefully as Hannah's long curtain of hair fell over her face, blond mingling with deep chestnut.

"Can we please _do_ something about her?" their older daughter complained irritably, slumping in their doorway. "She woke me up half an hour ago to get the cornflakes down. Five-thirty in the freaking morning for Merlin's sake. I'm thinking the circus. Mum? Dad? Any takers?"

Hannah turned Miranda around and held her at arm's length, frowning. "Hm, well, you know, she's got – floppy ears," she tugged gently on one of Miranda's pigtails – "and – a long nose" – she traced a finger from the tip of Miranda's nose down to her bellybutton, and Miranda clapped her hands over her mouth to hold in her laughter.

"She goes mad for peanuts," Neville chipped in, sitting up and winking at Ami in the doorway.

Hannah slid off the bed and scooped Miranda up into her arms. "I think we might have a right brilliant elephant, here."

"The best one in the bunch," Neville grinned as Hannah chivvied their daughters out of the bedroom. He heard her singing, "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro!" all the way down the hallway above the girls' chatter.

When Neville reached their snug kitchen, which looked out at Hogsmeade's high street, ten minutes later, showered, clad in his good school robes saved for the few days he wasn't puttering around in the dirt, and checking his bag for the notes about underage magic, Hannah already had a heap of bacon, eggs, and toast waiting on the table. Miranda lay on her belly under her chair, holding Marvin, their fat, yellow cat, captive, and Ami was in full swing about plans for her eleventh birthday the next day.

"You'll be home all day, right Dad?" she asked, turning shining eyes on her father.

Neville chuckled, grabbing a piece of toast. "I'm all yours."

"Good," she said, flashing a fervent smile.

She had treated the matter of his having her birthday off as carefully and reverently as a golden soap bubble, like it might vanish at any second. Her birthday happened to fall just as exams were winding down, or O.W.L.s were getting started. As much as he tried not to, Neville usually ended up stuck at school from dawn until dusk. But not this year. Term was ending early this year.

"I better be off now, though," he said, pecking Hannah on the cheek. "Train leaves in less than three hours and you know there'll be a dozen kids who've got last-minute arguments over their grade or questions about the summer work."

"Good luck," Hannah smirked. "What time'll you be by the pub, then?"

"Count on ten, I suppose. There's a staff meeting after we load the kids up. The girls coming with you or is Aurora taking them?"

"Oh, can't we go to London?" Ami begged, swiveling around in her chair to fix her parents with beseeching eyes.

"I'm _bored _at Aurora's!" Miranda complained.

They burst into a clamor of pleas.

"Alright, alright," Hannah cut in, laughing. "If you promise not to get under foot, you can come and help me today, and maybe this afternoon when the train comes in, James or Al and Rose will take you up Diagon Alley, hm?"

"I'll get my Christmas money!" Ami said excitedly, jumping out of her chair.

Neville caught her just before she reached the stairs and dropped a kiss on the top of her honey blond head. "See you in a bit, Ally."

Miranda, not to be outdone, scrambled up and threw herself into her father's arms. "And me, too?"

"And you too, ladybug," he promised.

_7:35 A.M._

Angelina swept her long tangle of black curls into a ponytail as she blearily shuffled into the living room.

"Morning," George greeted crisply, sliding a cup of tea into her hand. "Ready for the heathens to be back?"

Angelina took a gulp of the steaming liquid and swore as it scalded her throat. She cast a watering eye around the neat, orderly flat with its lack of muddy Quidditch gear thrown into corners, no day-old glasses of pumpkin juice leaving rings on the coffee table, and not a single dog-eared magazine or book to layer the sofa.

"Hell yes. This place is far too quiet without them. I miss not being able to see the carpet. It reminds me how little time we actually get to spend in this lovely flat of ours."

George laughed. "They do give it a nice lived-in feel, don't they? Knew there was a reason we kept them around."

Angelina rolled her eyes and pushed his face away. "Not that we'll get to see them much the day the train comes in. Which one of us will be leaving the other to the wolves to go fetch them form the station?" She batted her eyes at him and he smirked.

"Neither. Ron's landed himself with a day off, so he offered to meet them, and Fred's got his license now, so he can side-along Roxie from the platform."

"Oh, don't remind me of that," Angelina sighed, glancing toward the pictures that immortalized her gap-toothed, eight-year-old son above the sofa.

George stood to put his mug in the sink. "Well I'd better get downstairs and finish putting orders together or they won't get done before we're stormed by the mobs."

"I'll open in a bit," she told him as he headed for the stairs. "And be careful if you're working with the fireworks!" she called after his disappearing figure. He waved a hand to dismiss her worries, and she could practically feel him roll his eyes.

Angelina flicked her wand at the loaf of bread on the counter and a piece toasted itself and flew into her hand. Sipping her tea and crunching on the toast, she looked around at the flat she and George had lived in for nearly twenty years. It had gotten a bit bigger since they'd first moved in and expanded to the building next door. The furniture was finally new now that they didn't have children crawling all over it with markers and grape juice, and the walls were decorated a bit with nostalgic pictures that reminded Angelina of all she had liked about having small children and none of what she'd hated. It was almost an entirely different place from the one-room bachelor pad already crowded with memories it had been when she'd first come to it.

She enjoyed the last sight of everything being in order until September, and then cleared the table, dressed in the joke shop's magenta robes – the things she did for her husband – and went downstairs to prepare for one of the busiest days of the year.

_8:47 A.M._

There was a knock on Harry's office door. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was too early for problems. Hermione never knocked, Teddy just sent patronuses rather than getting up and crossing the office floor to talk in person, and Percy never waited for an admittance before throwing the door open. If someone was knocking and waiting for an answer, there was a problem.

"Come in," he called reluctantly after a minute, closing the file on the recent spate of kidnappings they'd been investigating.

Sofia Hollis, undersecretary to the department, tentatively stuck her dark head around the door, brandishing a pink slip. "Milton's sent in a notice for indefinite leave of absence."

Harry sighed. "S'pose it was a matter of time. It was his sister last month, the one they got in Muggle London. Taking the tube home from the Ministry and she just vanished. Turned up on their doorstep a couple weeks later and… well, you read the paper. You sent him the notice about three months of inactivity, losing status, et cetera?"

"Yes, sir, I did, but I don't reckon it'll change his mind."

"Nah, me neither. Well, better he figure out he can't handle it now rather than in the middle of a mission or something. Shame. He was damn good. And he was the lead of those cases. We're going to be hurting without him. You can put the slip in the tray over there."

Sofia laid the pink slip on top of a stack of other identical ones in a wire tray beside the door, but didn't withdraw from the room.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"Er, Milton was scheduled for patrol this week," she said apologetically.

"Of course he was," Harry muttered, heaving himself out of his chair and slipping past Sofia to check the schedule board in the corridor. "Should I ask for volunteers or just pick the oblivious people least likely to notice they've got extra patrols?"

Sofia merely smiled politely.

Harry examined the schedule for a moment, chewing his lip. Figuring his godson would be the least likely to hate him for the extra workload, he jabbed his wand at the schedule and Milton's name vanished. Harry headed back to his office, thanking Sofia for her vigilance. Sofia blushed and hurried back to her desk. The schedule on the wall now showed Teddy Lupin's name under the Knockturn Alley column for that afternoon.

_9:15 A.M._

"Did I ever tell you you're my favorite big brother ever?"

Ron looked warily over the top of his paper at Ginny's face floating in the living room fireplace.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "And how have I earned that honorable title?"

"By getting the kids from King's Cross this afternoon for me and maybe buying them some ice cream so they won't feel abandoned by their parents."

"You realize Lily turned fourteen in February, right?"

"You're never too old for ice cream."

"But at a certain point its magical ability to make everything better goes away. Sure, I can collect the munchkins, but how come you and Harry aren't waiting like mother hens at the gate for them?"

Ginny bit her lip. "Well, Harry's got to work, you know, deal with all those disappearances, and I was going to collect them, but there's a match in Hollyhead today that I really want to cover. England's scouting for the next World Cup and when else will I get a chance to pick Dan Fileppi's brain for an article?"

She gave him her best doe eyes.

"I already said I'd do it," Ron reminded her amusedly. "But just remember this next time Rose wants to go dress robe shopping while Hermione's in court."

"Done."

"Hey, when'll the match be over, do you reckon?"

"Probably around three, but I've got to get the article ready for tomorrow's _Prophet_. I doubt I'll get out of the office until six."

"Tell you what. Why don't I let the kids loose in Diagon Alley for the afternoon? I'm getting Fred and Roxie anyway, and I bet James'll make a bee line for the shop no matter what. We can muck about until you're done with your article and then Harry and Hermione can meet us for dinner or something, sound good? That way they won't feel so abandoned."

"Did I ever tell you you're my favorite big brother ever?"

Ron grinned. "I try. Now get off to Hollyhead."

_10:56 A.M._

By the time Neville stumbled out of the fireplace in the Leaky Cauldron, the pub was already bustling. Parents who would meet the train in a few hours had come to make a day of it. Mothers towed small children by the hand, poring over long lists of shopping, family friends and distant aunts who'd decided to join the reception party crowded around tables to wait out the clock, and older siblings who had already left school gathered at the bar, glad of a reason to be in London on a weekday.

"You're late," Hannah accused, directing three platters of food toward distant tables with her wand.

"I know, sorry, love. Meeting ran late." He ducked to kiss her quickly before hoisting a new crate of butterbeer onto the counter and cracking it open for the impatient patrons.

"Or Mervine and Lancing persuaded you to nip down to the Three Broomsticks for a celebratory drink before joining your slave-driver wife in the madhouse."

"Of course not!" Neville tried to say indignantly, but he couldn't keep his face straight.

"You're still a terrible liar, dear," Hannah told him. "But better late than never."

"Where're the girls?" he asked, refilling a few glasses.

"In the back. Nancy's keeping an eye on them for now. Miranda smuggled the cat through the Floo."

Neville quickly stifled a guffaw. "What, did she hide him under her dress?"

"I honestly don't know how she managed it, but she kicked up a storm when I tried to send him back."

"She's your daughter," Neville laughed.

"Clearly she's _yours_," Hannah countered, vanishing into the kitchen for more orders.

_12:02 P.M._

Living above a joke shop, with Roxanne as a little sister, James as a best friend, and Louis always looking for revenge for their latest heists, Fred had come to expect ambushes. But not from birds like Dorothy Harolds, all long, graceful limbs and shining coffee-brown hair and smelling like cherries. It was starting to happen a lot since that Hogsmeade weekend he'd snogged her in the back of the Three Broomsticks.

"Hey, handsome," her battle cry whispered in his ear and he knew he was a goner. Her arms encircled his neck from behind and he could feel her breath, hot against his ear.

"James," he said in a strangled voice. "Mind if I catch you later?"

James rolled his eyes. "Just mind you get a room," he told them as he sped along the corridor away from them. "There are innocent eyes on this train!"

Perfect, James thought moodily as he heard Fred and Dorothy topple into an empty compartment behind him. Even on the bloody school train full of first-years and prefects she couldn't keep her hands to herself. Now what was he supposed to do? He didn't feel much like returning to their friends alone. Not when Aaron was occupied with his boyfriend and Chelsea Turner had dropped in to natter to Jo about something some girl said in the loo last week. He decided to look for Lily, who was always up for a good ruse, and was reflecting on the pathetic state his social life had come to if he was seeking out his baby sister for company, when he walked headlong into someone.

She was a head shorter than him and had a mane of red hair, so for a moment he thought he'd found Lily, but then she whipped around and there was a wand at his throat.

"What d'you mean by it, Potter?" she snarled.

"Merlin's sake, keep your panties on, Bennit," James said easily, pushing her wand away. "You know I just can't get enough of your hideous face."

Madeline Bennit scowled and didn't put her wand away. "Just when I think I'm finished with you for a few months…" she muttered.

Her dark green eyes narrowed and James's pulse quickened. The image of Fred intertwined with Dorothy flashed behind his eyes. Merlin's – he did not_ want_ _Bennit_. She was a troll, a bloody Slytherin. The thought should make him physically ill. But all he could think of was Fred and Dorothy, and Jo and her idiot seventh-year, Ravenclaw, Quidditch-captain boyfriend, and even Aaron and Michael, so infatuated with each other that they didn't notice anything else around them, and here was Bennit raising his blood pressure like always and– God, Potter, knock it off!

"What are you _staring _at?" she demanded.

James tore his eyes away from her smooth, rosebud lips. "Nice get-up," he snickered instead, snapping the lacy red strap that had shimmied up her shoulder to poke out of her collar. "You putting on a show tonight?"

Her wand flew and James slammed against the compartment door beside them hard enough to see stars. The second-years inside jumped up, startled.

"If you so much as breathe in my direction again, Potter, I swear to God and Merlin alike that I'll rip your valuables out and feed them to the giant squid," she growled. Then she spun, long hair whipping his face.

"Nice to see that warm, feminine charm of yours, Bennit!" James called after her retreating back. Then he staggered off in the opposite direction, not sure if his blood was rushing from anger or something else.

_1:12 P.M._

"Oi, Lupin, you check the shift schedule?"

Travis Arros stuck his head into Teddy's cramped cubicle. Teddy dropped his head into his folded arms with a groan.

"Suppose I'm on for patrol this afternoon, huh? Perfect."

Travis smirked and leaned against the edge of Teddy's desk. "Didn't get those reports filled out for Potter, eh? Third time this month. He'll have your head, godson or not."

"I know," Teddy cringed, looking up at Travis with one bleary eye. "Vic and I sort of… lost track of time last night, you know, with the wedding two months away. It's stressful."

"Yeah, stressful," Travis snickered, dark eyes dancing with mirth. "Good thing you've got your own flat, mate, 'cause I don't reckon your gran'd approve of your stress-relief methods. And I wouldn't even want to think about what her _father_ would –"

"Shut it," Teddy muttered, shoving a cackling Travis off his desk.

"So, you need me to switch shifts with you or not?"

"Would you?" Teddy asked, turning to him with a comical expression of hope shining on his face. "Aw, Travis, you're a real mate, you are, if you'd do that. I'd owe you."

Travis waved a modest hand. "I'll take Knockturn for an afternoon and we'll call it even for the ten years you pulled my arse through defense classes with passing grades, yeah?"

"Sounds about fair," Teddy grinned. "Look, as soon as I get these damned reports filed, I'll come and relieve you. We can swing by for a drink with Rob after."

"I reckon we swing by for too many drinks with Rob considering we're on call all week," Travis mused.

"Liquid courage's all," Teddy assured him.

"Harry know you talk like that?"

"Hell no. He'd tie me down and sober me up with a long lecture on responsibility before I could get a word in edgewise about how Rob switches our whiskey out for cider after the first glass and thinks we can't see through his transfiguration spell."

"You know, as cool as it is to have 'The Chosen One' as your godfather, it also really sucks. Nobody has a better guilt trip than he does, I bet."

"You try selling the 'because we're young' card to someone who saved the bloody world at seventeen," Teddy grimaced. He smacked his thick stack of reports into Travis's shoulder. "Better get to the Alleys before you're late for my shift."

"I'm holding you to that drink, Lupin!"

_2:22 P.M._

Albus was losing spectacularly at chess.

"Knight to E5," Scorpius smirked.

"This is hopeless," Al complained as his last knight was pummeled to bits. "Can't we just say you win and end the humiliation?"

"Not a chance, Potter. Not when you get to kick my arse at Quidditch every other weekend. I intend to drag this out to the very end."

"You're sadistic."

"Nah, just vengeful."

Rose glanced over from her Charms book with mild interest. "Send your bishop to F9," she told Albus.

"No fair, you can't help him!" Scorpius complained.

"I don't block half the shots you manage to get close to the goal hoops," she told him, rolling her eyes.

Albus snickered as Scorpius colored with indignation and embarrassment. "Did you really never notice?" he asked.

"Shut it, Potter," Scorpius muttered, throwing one of the pawns he'd captured from Al into his face.

The compartment door banged open.

"I've got a brilliant plan. Inspired actually," James announced dramatically. He scrambled over Al to avoid the chess board ("Umph, Get. Off. James!") and sprawled in the window seat, regarding them all with a smug look. "Want to hear it?"

"Where's your significant other?" Albus asked.

"Freddie? Aw, he's snogging his girl up the train. Hence me gracing you with my much-sought-after company. So, brilliant plan. Ready for it?"

Rose had returned to her book and Albus and Scorpius to their game.

James rolled his eyes. "Oi, you," he said, pointing to one of Al's castles. "Four spaces that way."

"Stop helping him!" Scorpius exclaimed as he was forced to move his queen out of the line of fire.

"Even I can't sit back and watch a massacre like that. Besides, now you owe me," he added, poking his little brother in the side. "Want to hear my brilliant plan?"

"Alright, shoot," Albus sighed.

James raised his hands as if framing an image. "Imagine a dozen frenzied mice swarming from each seventh-year's trunk, filling the carriage they snagged with screams and mayhem."

He regarded them with a satisfied smirk. Albus and Scorpius exchanged raised eye-brows. Rose looked unimpressed.

"Funny, I seem to remember celebrating a few of your birthdays since you were twelve, but you haven't gotten any older."

"It's my last chance to pull something over!" James defended. "Once we're off this train, I'm a seventh-year and it's just pathetic to prank younger students. It's like dangling a rubber mouse in front of a kitten. You can't laugh when it jumps and face-plants into the wall."

Rose perked up. "Does that mean I won't have to dock a hundred and four points from Gryffindor next year because of you?"

"A hundred and four points?" Scorpius repeated with a low whistle. "No wonder you guys lost."

"She's exaggerating." James heaved a put-upon sigh. "You lot should've been in Ravenclaw. No nerve, I tell you. Play by the book. No bold, daring, inspired whims. You all just sit there and cower that you might accidentally put a toe out of line."

"No we don't," Albus objected indignantly.

"December 23, 2021," James proclaimed, spinning on Albus dramatically. "Albus Potter spots a hooded stranger – i.e. an unfamiliar person wearing a hood in, _gasp, _winter – down an alley in Godric's freaking Hallow. He develops a nervous tick all the way home. July 5, 2020, The Potter children are left home alone while their parents attend a suffocatingly stuffy Ministry affair until the early hours of the morning. A thunder storm ravages the house and Albus Potter falls asleep on his little sister's bedroom floor because, he claims, he's heard a boggart in the attic –"

"I did! And even if _you _don't care, I didn't want her worst fear bursting in on her in the middle of the night!" Albus interjected.

"April 14, 2020," James plowed on.

"You're making dates up."

"Albus Potter retrieves Rose Weasley from the library to capture a tarantula his weird roommate let loose in his dorm. September 5, 2019, Albus Potter becomes the first Hogwarts student to fail the Boggart practical when he bolts in terror during his turn. July 30, nearly-thirteen-year-old Albus Potter is reduced to tears when –"

"Shut up, James!" Albus interrupted, tomato-red, lunging at his brother to stop the next words from coming out of his mouth.

James fought him off with ease. "Yes, clearly you're the image of daring nerve and chivalry," he drawled.

"Leave him alone," Rose snapped, scowling at James as Albus glowered at his fingers. "That was low, dragging the boggart into this. There's nothing wrong with us not wanting to slip dung bombs into people's bags and curse their hair different colors. Did you ever think it's those things that stopped you from ever getting a girlfriend? At least Fred knows when to knock it off."

"I wouldn't be talking, Rosie," James shot back, an edge coming into his voice now. "You're so dull no bloke looks twice at you. All he's got to do is read the student handbook to see what being in a relationship with you is like."

"Some boys might like a girl who isn't _insane_," Rose said primly, but her lip trembled just a bit.

"Then they better not look at you during exams," James muttered. "You're as tightly wound as Molly. You both act like you've got brooms shoved up–"

"Hey, James? wanna shut up?" Albus suggested crossly.

"Hey, Al? wanna grow a pair?"

"Wanna get out?"

"Like nothing else," James replied. He made to shove the chess board out of his way, saw how badly Al was losing, and decided to clamber over him instead to preserve it. When he'd gone, Albus got up and slammed the door after him, glaring.

"You haven't gotten into it with James like that in months," Scorpius ventured to observe. "I mean, it's no record-breaking row, but still…."

Albus threw himself back into his seat and flicked over his king. "You win. Wanna play exploding snap?"

_3:51 P.M._

The big room in the basement of the _Prophet _office was always a flurry of noise. It was called the Warehouse because it was where all the rookie reporters were kept mixed in with interns and freelancers and weather columnists who had never really made it. Basically the minute you became anybody at all, your desk moved.

Victoire Weasley had had the same desk in the back corner of the Warehouse for nearly four years. It was not a bad desk, really. The intern who had assigned it to her on her first day had taken quite a shine to her before he found out she had a boyfriend. She was right under one of the few narrow, glass-block windows set high in the wall so that a pool of sunlight fell right across her work while the rest of the room was a sea of flickering brazier light. The coffee-and-tea pot was close enough that she could simply roll her chair over to get a mug. There was an extra foot of space where a file cabinet no one had ever seen opened stood between her desk and the wall. And best of all, right across the desk from her was Chris Pennilark, his floppy, boyish hair, immature impressions of their editor, and endless reams of female troubles to distract Victoire with when the days were slow.

But it had been four years down here where the sun barely shown, the smoke never cleared, and only the wispiest semblances of real news ever came for the headline-starved rookies to fight over. She might have been endowed with the great patience necessary to head the Weasley brood through Hogwarts, but even in her place in the sun, her journalistic rapture was withering.

"Say, can I, say, get you, say, a cup of, say, coffee?" an exaggeratedly thick voice said in her ear and a foaming late slid under her nose.

Victoire rolled her eyes as Chris Pennilark propped himself against her desk, pretending to take a long draw from his quill as if it were the brass pipe their editor habitually had between his teeth. "How's the _neeews_ today, my dear?" Chris asked in an unctuous voice and Victoire snatched his quill-pipe away with an exasperated smile.

"Quite nonexistent," she said, rolling the quill between her fingers.

"So I need not alert the authorities of the apocalypse?" he smirked.

"Not even news of the apocalypse would make it down to the dusty rolls of parchment down here," Victoire lamented. "When I first interviewed with the _Prophet, _I was prepared for sitting through long, dull ministry affairs and standing outside freezing my arse off for quotes and all that stary-eyed romanticism everyone has at the beginning of their career, and I figured it'd all be worth it if I just got to say one thing that people might remember, you know?"

Chris bobbed his head. "You're going deep on me, Weasley. Too deep for a Wednesday afternoon, but I'm following you anyway. Now you thinking just getting a chance to freeze your arse off for something other than kelpies in Wales, even if they run the story on the bleeding crossword page, would make it worth it?"

"Something like that," Victoire sighed. She tossed Chris's quill over to his desk and stared down at the parchment she'd been scratching at. St. Mungo's new contract with Mrs. Scour's. Self-cleaning bedpans. Riveting.

"Well, maybe if you just keep batting those big blue eyes of yours, you'll have a shot out of here," Chris told her, pivoting around to his side of the desks.

"I don't _want _that kind of shot," she said exasperatedly.

"Then talk to your aunt," he shrugged, reluctantly pulling his sheaf of photography assignments toward himself. He took one look at it and reached for the old, clacking camera that was always no more than an arm's length away, aiming it at the ceiling and fiddling with the settings.

"I don't want _that _kind of shot, either." She let out her breath in a puff that made her strawberry blond bangs flutter.

"That's how the reporter game is played, babe," Chris told her sagely. "Nepotism and the sex drive." He pointed his camera at her and snapped a picture with a flash like a supernova.

"I'm going to see if Ginny's back from the match yet," Victoire announced, swinging restlessly to her feet.

"Nepotism and the sex drive!" Chris called after her, smirking.

"Shut up. You Wanker." She called cheerfully back without turning around.

_5:06 P.M._

"Mon petit garcon!"

The moment Louis stepped through the barrier, his mother flew at him, crushing him in a hug she must have learned from his grandmother. Ron, attempting to corral his many charges a few feet away paused to smirk at him over his mother's shoulder. Louis rolled his eyes. Something wriggled in his pocket and Fleur let go of him with a shriek, babbling in French as a white mouse skittered down Louis's leg and vanished into the crowd.

"Long story," Louis told her sheepishly, glancing over at James who saluted him.

"Never mind," Fleur managed, taking Louis's shoulders once again and looking him up and down. "Oh, eet ees so _good_ to see you! 'Ow 'ave you been? 'Ow were your exams? Oh, I can't believe you're finished already!"

"You didn't have to come get me," Louis said quickly, alarmed by her watery eyes. "I was gonna apparate."

"Of course I 'ad to come!" Fleur exclaimed indignantly, leading him out of the way of the streaming students. "Eet ees ze last time I'll ever come to collect my children from ze train."

A few stray tears glittered on her cheeks, but she was beaming, so Louis felt safe. Fleur discretely waved her wand at the trunk at their feet and it vanished. She hugged him one more time, hard, and then tugged him toward the rest of the family.

"Come along, mon petit, we 'ave to 'elp Ron get ze brood to Diagon Alley, and zen your fazer will like to see you at ze bank and your seesters are coming over tonight…. Eet will be so wonderful to 'ave you 'ome!"

Louis felt guilt squirming in his stomach as he tried to think of a way to tell her he wasn't staying.

_5:11 P.M._

Rose's dad looked furtively around to make sure no Muggles were watching, then he waved his wand surreptitiously at the last stack of trunks piled behind a pillar near the back of the station and they vanished.

"That's the lot of 'em," he said, turning back to the gaggle of teenagers grouped around him, offering cover from prying eyes. "I sent your trunk to Godric's Hollow, Scorpius. You can take it through the Floo with you later. Right, so how're we getting to Diagon Alley?"

Scorpius's gaze drifted over the crowded station as the Weasleys attempted to organize themselves. From long experience he knew it was better to stay out of any of their group decisions if he wanted to keep his head. He watched idly as his classmates wandered through the dwindling crowd, noting with interest which groups were waiting for which students. Max Webber, Al's weird roommate, was leaving with a woman who had so many feathers tied in her long mane of hair it looked like she was wearing an owl on her head, but he never would have guessed Fred and James's bouncing-off-the-walls friend Aaron would be traipsing glumly behind a demur man dressed all in gray.

On the far side of platform ten, though, something else caught his eye. A small huddle of his housemates had gathered around a trolley, and among them was Olivia Knott. He watched her carefully for a few moments, biting his lip. Were they still going to do it?

As if she could feel his eyes, Olivia straightened and looked at him. She cocked her head, a question.

"Hey, Al, I'll be right back, okay?" Scorpius muttered, not looking to see if his friend had heard him. He set off across the bustling station, weaving expertly through the crowds until he'd reached Olivia and the others. Olivia's lips turned up in a soft smile, but most of the others watched him warily.

"He's alright," she told the others, waving away their guarded looks. To Scorpius she said, "Are you in?"

Scorpius shifted. "Look, I don't think it's a good idea."

"I told you!" Montague said furiously to Olivia. "What'd you go and tell him for? He's half in bed with Potter and Weasley both. Did you see who's come to collect him? The Deputy Head of the bloody Auror Office himself!"

"Shut it, Orpheus," Olivia drawled. "Scorp may be too Gryffindor to consort with the lot of us, but he's no tattletale." She looked at him and he could feel her disappointment. It burned guiltily in his chest.

Across the atrium, the Deputy Head of the bloody Auror Office himself was counting his charges.

"Seven… Someone's missing," Ron frowned, skimming the group.

"Scorp's over there," Al supplied, appearing suddenly at Ron's elbow.

Ron followed where he was pointing. He could just barely see the Mafloy kid's white-blond head bent in with a bunch of other kids he didn't – wait. Ron knew the one on the left. He recognized the thick brows and heavy set of one of the boys from his own school days. A sour taste filled his mouth, but he tried not to show it for his daughter's sake.

"Well, we're leaving, so if he wants to come with us, he better get back over here," he said.

"Scorpius!" Rose's voice arched beneath the high glass ceiling. Scorpius glanced over his shoulder and saw that they were waiting for him.

"I better go," he said hastily to Olivia. "Just be careful, alright?"

She grabbed his wrist before he could turn away. "You too."

**A/N: And on that dramatic note, I cut you off. Muahaha! Did I ruin the moment? Sorry, I'll stop trying to be witty. Ehem. Okay, so here's the deal. I have the next chapter finished and the third one started. I have a plan, but it's a rather grand one. I could either post the next chapter in a couple of days and then leave you dangling off a cliff for a couple of weeks or longer, or I could keep it in reserve and **_**promise **_**you an update in a little over a week and hope that you'll be dangling off a cliff for a shorter time after that. Fair warning, it took me six months to get two chapters done. I kept going back and adding more and more and changing things around. (I'm actually not sure I'm quite ready to set this chapter in stone, but I guess it's a little late for that. Just have to roll with it.) Right, so… review and let me know! And maybe give a little feedback on the actual story, too? I want to make it really good for you! **


	2. 5:15 PM

**A/N: Wow, glad to see so much interest in this! Well, as promised, here's part two. I've been working on sorting out the next chapter all week, but I have to tell you, it's being difficult to organize, so it's only just started. I'll talk more about it at the end. Hope you enjoy! **

**Oh, and Serendipity (Thanks, Serendipity ;)) raised an interesting question about writing a story set ten years in the future. I hadn't even thought about the Muggle aspect of the timeline as technological advances seem to be slow in coming to the wizarding world. I'm sticking to this storyline and these characters, and I've got a general plan, so hopefully there will be no meandering. **

**Right, onward!**

_5:15 P.M._

The moment they landed on the uneven cobbled street, Rose wriggled out of her father's grip, glancing around to assure herself no one she knew was watching.

"What's your problem, Rose?" Hugo asked, swaying a bit in Ron's grip. Apparition always made him woozy. "Everyone knows you can't do it alone until you're of age. Who cares if anyone sees Dad side-alonging you?"

"It's _mortifying_," Rose complained. "I could do it myself if they'd let me take the test."

"Well, you've just got one more year and you'll be all grown up, Rosie," Ron told her with the shadow of sarcasm he needed to swallow that frightening reality. "Until then, you'll have to hold daddy's hand to get anywhere," he teased, and she swatted his hand away as he made to pinch her cheek, smirking.

"Get off, James!" Albus snapped as he and his brother appeared a few feet away. He shook off James's grip just as Rose had shaken off Ron's, and James, scowling, gave him a shove.

"Next time you can walk," he snapped back.

Ron raised his eyebrows at his children. "What's gotten into them?"

"James is just a royal prat," Rose spat, glaring at James. "As usual."

Hugo hitched a shoulder at Ron, offering a 'who knows' look, and darted off to find Lily, who'd come with Fleur.

"Come say hello to your aunt and uncle before you disappear," Ron called after him. "You lot too!" he added as Scorpius made his way over to Rose and Albus and they began to wander toward the ice cream parlor. All Ron got was a vague wave over the shoulder from Hugo. He sighed. Teenagers.

_5:18 P.M._

"I told you not to come by the house anymore."

"Well, this isn't the house, is it?"

"My wife saw you at the gate again last night. She's going to start asking questions."

"She's a pretty thing, your wife."

"Just stay away from the house, alright?"

"Is that an order? Do you think you're in a place to give orders? What if, one of these days, I walked in that door and had a conversation with that wife of yours?"

Familiar voices echoed down the marble corridors. Bill Weasley looked hastily over his shoulder. "Look, I don't have time for this right now. I'll come find you later." And he hastily turned as the woman pulled her violet hood up, feeling her eyes burning a hole in his back.

"Dad!"

Bill spun around, a smile plastered on his face. "Hey! The man of the hour!" He strode forward and grabbed his son in a rough hug. "How's it feel to be good and done with school?"

Louis grinned. "**'**Bout the same. Won't be doing any less work than I've been doing all year."

"I hope your exam results prove that a joke," Bill told him, clapping him on the shoulder. "It's good to see you, boy."

"I 'ope we weren't eenterrupting somezing eemportant," said Fleur, looking curiously after the figure retreating around the corner with a swish of her cloak.

"Nah, just some polite small talk," Bill said off-handedly, leaning down to peck her cheek.

"Think you can skive off and come hassle Dom with us, Dad?" Louis asked hopefully. "I hear her boyfriend got a job at Quality Quidditch, too."

Bill smiled ruefully. "I think I better stay here and get my work done."

"Aw, come on, it's only an hour left anyway. It won't do to bug Dom after the shop's closed. She won't have to be polite for customers, then."

"Tempting as that is, there're some things I need to take care of. Dinner still at six-thirty?"

"On ze dot," Fleur warned, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him.

"Ergh, offspring present," Louis complained, turning away. "We've left you alone too long."

His parents laughed.

"See you in a bit, then. Don't wind your sister up too much. Remember – she gets off in an hour, just like me."

"Yeah, whatever," Louis said unconcernedly, allowing his father to ruffle his hair before loping off up the corridor. Fleur was about to follow him when Bill grabbed her around the waist.

She laughed. "Not zat I mind," she said after he'd kissed her hard on the swan-curve of her neck. "But what 'as gotten into you?"

Bill shrugged, pulling her tight against him. Fleur spared him one last kiss before patting his cheek and disentangling herself from his grip. "Save eet for tonight, when ze children 'ave all gone and left us again."

He watched her retreat up the hallway, her long hair swinging in a braid at her slender hips. Then he turned into his office with a horrible taste rising in his throat.

_5:20 P.M._

Hugo nudged Lily forward a step. "Go on, then."

"Me? Why me?" she demanded.

"Cause everyone knows you're the brave one," he explained slowly.

"That's ridiculous," she scoffed, grabbing his elbow and dragging him up next to her. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

They both turned together to peer up at the new addition to Diagon Alley. It was a narrow brick-fronted building like all the rest, squeezed in between the _Prophet_ office and a tiny record shop that must have held every wizarding album ever produced. This new storefront, however, was draped in black. The door looked as though it had been painted with tar. Behind the displays in the windows (flanked by dark shutters) were thick, black velvet curtains. The awnings cast pools of black shadows on the pavement, and on either corner of the wrought iron sign sat two large ravens that cawed down at passersby.

"Cry o' the Raven Talismans," Hugo murmured with a gulp. He squinted at one of the window displays of gothic-looking metal bowls and slowly revolving amulets. "Creepy."

"Customize your purchases with personal fortune readings; knowing your misfortunes is the first step to prevention," Lily read from a small sign nailed beneath a hideous onyx gargoyle face.

"What d'you reckon they do to tell your misfortunes?" Hugo whispered.

"There's only one way to find out," Lily whispered back.

But neither one of them moved.

"It's super morbid," Lily said matter-of-factly.

"Just makes people paranoid," Hugo agreed.

"Probably a rip-off."

"Mum says divination's a load of dragon dung."

They looked at each other.

"You reckon they've got Thestral bones in there?" Hugo asked.

"Come on," Lily said, and she sized his wrist and pulled him into the shop.

_5:23 P.M._

Ami perched on a stool in a corner behind the bar, watching the gaggles of older Hogwarts students with intent gray eyes.

"Mum," she said as Hannah hurried past her. She gave her mother a pleading look, fingering the coin pouch in her lap.

Hannah looked back over to where Fred and James were holding court with a group of their friends.

"Ames, give them a bit, alright? They just got out of school, and they're of age now. I doubt they're going to stick around here, anyway."

"But you promised," Ami reminded her.

"I said maybe we would ask," Hannah sighed. "I can't make promises for other people."

"But I haven't been to the record shop in ages," Ami whispered, tracing the edge of her pouch with her fingertips.

"You'll have Dad all to yourself tomorrow, angel," her mother told her. "You'll be able to go then."

Clearly, this didn't make a difference.

"Alright, when they come up to pay the tab, I'll ask James to see if Al and Rose will take you, or Lily. How's that?"

Ami bit her lip. "How come I can't go myself? It's only up the street, and I'm old enough."

"Sweetheart, there are a lot of people between us and up the street," Hannah tried to explain, running a frazzled hand through her hair. "You're still a little thing, and you don't even have a wand yet. I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I'm going to be going all the way across the country on my own in September," Ami pointed out, choosing to ignore the fact that Hogwarts was really only up the road from her house and that her father would be there most of the time. Every other eleven-year-old would be trusted to go on their own.

"That's different," her mother told her. "No one's going to snatch you off the school train, and anyway, you'll have a wand."

"What if I went to Olivander's and got a wand and _then _went to the record shop?" Ami suggested hopefully.

"You'd still have to make it to Olivander's. Be patient, Ami. You'll get to the record store soon enough."

"But it's _Diagon Alley_. Nothing's going to happen in _Diagon Alley_." Ami muttered as her mother bustled away.

_5:24 P.M._

"Can I help you find something?"

"Dad, it's me!"

"Who? I've only got one daughter and she's still a little gum-snapping yapper. Couldn't be this fine young lady leaning on my counter."

"Dad!"

Beaming, George swept around the counter and grabbed Roxanne in a hug that swept her off her feet. "Look at you! You've grown three feet if an inch! We're starting you on a strict diet of coffee this minute before you pass up your old man."

"Dad! Honestly," Roxanne complained, but she was beaming too as he released her and she tugged her mane of braids back into place.

"Hey, Uncle George," Rose and Albus chorused, emerging from the crowd with Scorpius in tow. Rose leaned over to examine the new trick sweet being featured by the till and Albus hopped up on the counter next to Lucy, who was counting tips in the jar.

"It's a right invasion," said George, giving Rose a one-armed hug and clapping Al on the shoulder. "My little brother's a bad influence on you," he added, plucking at the Chudley Cannons sweatshirt Albus was wearing. "Hey, Ronnie. Still corrupting impressionable children I see."

"Just payback to Ginny for converting Rosie into a Harpies fan," Ron explained, joining the crowd of Weasleys that was steadily blocking the counter.

"They _are _a better team," Rose huffed, rolling her eyes.

"It shouldn't have anything to do with how good they are. It's about loyalty," Ron insisted.

"You sound like a Hufflepuff," Rose told him. "Have we fulfilled our familial duties yet, or should we keep Uncle George from his customers a little longer?"

"Oh, alright. Off with you, then," Ron allowed, barely finishing his sentence before Rose had pulled Al off the counter and they dove into the milling crowd, dragging Scorpius with them. Ron turned to roll his eyes at George, who gave him a knowing wink.

"Hey, Luce, wanna try out that new color-change nail polish Mum got for my birthday?" Roxanne offered, squeezed up against the counter by the press of people.

"Alright."

And in a moment, the two girls were gone as well. Ron came around the counter and started bagging things as George rang them up.

"How's she doing with… you know?" he asked quietly.

George glanced toward the stairs to the flat where the girls had disappeared. "I dunno how much she even knows," he admitted. "Roxie might know more than she does, but we've warned her to keep quiet and just be nicer than usual."

"Molly was the one waiting for her at the station," Ron confided.

"Yeah, she brought her straight over here. I guess she had to get back to work and didn't want Lucy going home to an empty flat. Didn't say much about the whole thing."

"You know Percy's been sleeping at Mum and Dad's?" Ron said in an even lower voice.

George didn't answer, just frowned. They checked customers out without speaking to each other for a while, then, as he pulled open the till to make change, George muttered, "It's his own damn fault, as usual."

"What d'you know about it?" Ron asked, distracted from packaging a pigmey puff. The fluffy pink thing scuttled up his arm to the amusement of the little girl waiting to pay for it.

George shrugged. "Well it's not likely Audrey's problem, is it? Percy's the one who tends to be a prat. It's just been so long since he's let the prat out that we forget."

"I dunno what's going on with them," Ron said flatly. "But if we have to keep Lucy out of it, we will."

_5:30 P.M._

Molly Audrey Weasley took a deep breath and looked at the crumbling building before her. The wooden steps were rotting, the door barely hung on its hinges, and all the windows were boarded up. From inside, she could hear loud, coarse voices and rather jarring music.

_No,_ she told herself firmly. _You are not going to be intimidated, Weasley_. _You could have told Dad or Mum or one of the uncles or Hermione or even Granddad if you didn't think you could do this. But you didn't tell anyone, did you? It's your case, so get your arse in there and take care of it._

Molly took another deep breath, trying not to gag on the rather horrid stench of rotting rubbish, alcohol, and what was probably urine. She smoothed her robes, patted her hat, and composed herself into a no-nonsense, dignified Ministry official before climbing the steps to number 93, Knockturn Alley.

_5:31 P.M._

"Daddy, I can't find Marvin."

Miranda had appeared suddenly at Neville's elbow as he set three sinks of dishes to washing themselves since their usual dishwasher had called in sick.

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere, bug," Neville assured her distractedly as another order appeared on the board beside the stove.

Miranda shook her head, pigtails flying. "He's not."

"You know how he likes the alley. He'll show up."

"Neville, can you manage the floor on your own for a bit?" Hannah asked, coming back with a tray of dirty glasses. "Horatio's owled in an order, and I promised I'd bring some ale by for him anyway. You know how he gets this time of year…."

Neville frowned. "How come he can't come get it himself? It's only up the alley, and all he does is putter around that old shop by himself. Why does he have to take you away from the busiest pub in London to go running down _there _to bring him alcohol?"

"Honestly, dear, the poor man is crippled, and he's lonely. He doesn't get much business. The least I can do is spare him some small talk a few times a week. And the apothecary is _barely_ in Knockturn Alley."

"But it _is_ still in it," Neville muttered. "And it's just the one knee. Honestly. Here, I'll take down his order. You're better at handling the floor than I am."

He grabbed the paper bag waiting on the counter, and pecked Hannah's cheek, softening her expression. He pushed open the door, and a small body darted around his legs.

"Oh no you don't," he said, swiftly lifting Miranda off her feet with his free arm. "You're to stay put with your sister, remember?"

"But Marvin –"

"He'll turn up, babe. He always does. Look, I'll search for him on my way, alright?"

Miranda stuck out her lip. "Alright, fine."

"That's a good girl." Neville planted a kiss on her cheek and dropped her back into the kitchen. "Mind your sister and don't make trouble for your mother."

"Don't _you _make trouble for Mr. Horatio," Miranda warned sternly, wagging a finger up at her father. "He gives us dragon scales to keep the pixies away from our garden."

"Yes, ma'am," Neville laughed, ruffling her hair. "Be back soon."

_5:34 P.M._

Hugo ducked down to examine a long row of leather necklaces, each strung with a milky white orb the size of an apple. _Carry your future around with you; will foretell events within a twelve hour span_ the tag read. Hugo squinted at the orbs. Shadowy images were moving and twisting inside. He pulled one off and held it in his palm, trying to glimpse a defined shape. The shadows gathered. Something was forming. It looked like a star with seven points, and in the middle, something else was shifting, something with pointed ears and a muzzle and –

"The Griiiiiimmmm!" The high-pitched wail nearly made him drop the orb. Lily jumped on his back, snickering. "That would look hot on you," she said, nodding to the crystal ball.

"Shut up," Hugo mumbled, shaking her off.

He looked back at the ball, but the shadows had dissipated.

"Can I help you find something?" a dreamy voice said from behind them, making them both jump this time.

They spun around to find themselves face-to-face with an old woman wrapped in a long black shawl. She peered at them with milky eyes over a beaklike nose, and Hugo couldn't help but be reminded of the birds perched on her sign out front.

"Erm, yes," Lily said, pinching Hugo when he looked at her with surprise. "My cousin here's worried about his future. What do you suggest for that?"

"Has he wronged anybody recently?"

"No," Hugo said indignantly.

"Bad break-up?"

"No!"

"Seen a two-legged gray hound?"

"…No?"

"It's just a general bad feeling," Lily cut in. "You know, pit-of-your stomach type thing. Is there anything that could, you know, keep away bad auras or something like that? Stave off misfortune?"

The woman made a noise in the back of her throat. "It is very difficult to protect against something when you don't know what it is. If there was a blanket safe-guard, everyone would carry it around, and nothing horrible would ever happen. Perhaps… a reading would help you narrow the field?"

She gestured delicately to a corner of the shop where a larger crystal ball glowed, surrounded by a clutter of teacups and playing cards and what looked like bird skeletons. Lily and Hugo exchanged a look.

"How much does that cost?" Lily asked skeptically.

"Can you really put a price on your cousin's safety?"

Lily just set her expression.

"Three sickles plus the price of tea," the woman muttered, shooting an annoyed look in Lily's direction.

"What d'you think, Hue?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I think I've only got two sickles," said Hugo, digging in his pocket.

"That will get you a palm reading," the woman put in smoothly.

"Our class learned how to do that this term," Lily told her, unimpressed.

"Trust me, darling," the woman said in a throaty voice. "Madam Casey knows much more than best-selling books when it comes to palm reading."

She gracefully extended a wrinkled hand, staring vacantly off to the side. Hugo hesitated. Lily hitched a shoulder at him, looking skeptical, but intrigued. He laid his hand in the old woman's.

Madam Casey's milky eyes widened. She put her other hand over Hugo's, tightening her grip like a vice, and turned her face toward him. "My dear, why didn't you _say_!" she whispered excitedly, pulling him closer so she could peer shortsightedly into his face. "You have the gift of second sight. _You_ are a seer!" She strung out the words like honey and a shiver went up his back.

"N-n-no I'm not," Hugo stammered, looking at Lily for help.

Madam Casey was now squeezing his fingers so hard, he'd lost feeling in the tips. "Hm, perhaps not fully-fledged yet, but your inner eye is strong, your perceptions keen. Tell me, boy, what is it you've been feeling?" Her voice was so urgent, it made his heart hammer.

'N-nothing," Hugo insisted.

Madam Casey stared intently at him for another moment, pressing her wrinkled lips together. Then she clicked her tongue and dropped his hand. "Reluctant. They always are. Maybe we start small."

She swept across the crowded shop, the wings of her shawl flapping. Her head still turned in his direction, she pulled down a string of beads and feathers ending in a large marble cat's eye.

"This is what you need," she said, brandishing it at him. "A dream talisman. It will make your dreams clearer, more revealing, make the danger lurking in your path more apparent."

"Danger?" Hugo gulped.

"How much does that cost?" Lily asked again, crossing her arms.

Madam Casey made an impatient noise. "Ten sickles, but for you, I shall give an IOU. Please take it, dear boy. You may pay me when you have the money, but I cannot let you walk out of this shop without some protection."

"What kind of danger?" he asked, approaching the counter. Lily was clearly not taken by the show, but Hugo was suddenly feeling uneasy.

Madam Casey began putting the talisman in a bag. "It is murky, my child. The future shifts, grows darker and lighter. But there is _something _lurking there, a dark, stalking something that neither goes away nor comes into focus." She pressed the bag into his hands. "You take this home and hang it on your bedpost. Then tomorrow, come back and tell me what you've dreamed. It could very well save your life."

Hugo exchanged one more look with Lily.

She shrugged. "Could be a laugh," she said under her breath, leaning against the counter.

Just as Hugo was about to take the bag, the door burst open, flooding the dim shop with bright daylight and making them all jump.

"Dad," Hugo yelped, startled.

"I've been looking all over the Alley for you two," said Ron. "Didn't I tell you to stop by the shop and see your aunt and uncle?"

"We were just coming that way," Lily said quickly.

But Ron was looking around the shop, examining the items on display with eyebrows raised higher and higher. Then he spotted the bag clutched in Hugo's hands.

"What've you go there, son?"

"Dream talisman," Hugo told him.

"How much have you paid?" Ron asked dubiously.

"I am offering him an IOU," Madam Casey explained slickly.

Ron strode forward and took the bag from Hugo, dropping it back on the counter. "It's very generous of you, but I think we'll pass."

"But –"

"Come on, Hugo – Lily – we've got to get going."

And with that, he dragged them out of the shop.

"Dad!" Hugo complained, blinking in the sunlight. "She was gonna give it to me for free!"

"No, she was going to charge you interest," Ron corrected, hurrying the two of them along the crowded street. "Divination is the biggest load of dung there is. Anybody trying to earn a living on it is either scamming you blind or bat-shit crazy."

"But Dad –"

"We were just –"

"You don't know what those talismans will really do. Granddad used to confiscate things like that. Nasty stuff. It might turn you orange, or it might make your hand fall off or even worse. You should never touch a necklace unless you know straight off it comes from a jeweler you can trust. I don't like that shop. It's creepy, and I want you two to stay out of it, alright?"

There was a petulant silence.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Fine."

The two exchanged exasperated looks and darted ahead of Ron through the teaming crowds.

_5:40 P.M._

"Welcome to Quality Quidditch, how can I help you?" the girl behind the counter reeled off automatically at the sound of the bell, not even looking up.

"Yeah, I'm looking for some new gear. I'd like to try on every combination of style and brand you offer."

Dominique snapped her gaze up from the magazine she'd been idly flipping through, counting down the minutes until closing. A grin spread across her face.

"Which position?"

"Oh, for all four, I think," said Louis, gesturing to the sheer wall of pad and glove displays. "And then I probably won't end up buying anything from you after all."

"You're a right git," Dominique laughed, coming around the counter and launching herself at her little brother.

"Thanks, love you too," Louis smirked, lifting her off the ground with the force of his hug. "Merlin, I'd forgotten how short you are."

"I'm perfectly average," Dominique huffed, blowing wisps of her short red hair out of her face. "You're just a ginger sasquatch freak show."

"Bonjour, ma petite," Fleur cut in, stepping forward to kiss her daughter. "Tu as des clients, no? Il faut etre poli."

She glanced pointedly at the two women looking over a Harpies poster at the back.

"Oui, Maman," said Dominique, rolling her eyes. "So," she said, turning back to Louis and punching his shoulder. "What'd you do for your seventh-year prank? Please tell me it wasn't as lame as –"

"Hey, Dom," came a man's muffled voice from the back room, deep and sultry. "What d'you say we close early tonight? Have some _fun_ in the Quaffle cage if you know –"

A tall, dark-haired young man came around the corner and froze, going horribly pale as he was met with not just Dominique, but her mother, brother, and two customers.

"I think we'd better go, Heidi," one of the women said, and they fled the shop, giving the large wire cage filled with Quaffles a wide birth.

Fleur had a hand covering her mouth. Louis cracked his knuckles.

"Er, Mum, Lou, this is Garret, my boyfriend," Dominique said, obviously trying hard not to crack up. "Gar, this is my mother and my little brother."

"Right, I'm just gonna go round back and hang myself," Garret mumbled, and he turned and fled.

"It's been empty in here all day," Dominique explained through a burst of giggles as her mother turned wide eyes on her and Louis's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his red fringe. "I should go check on him..."

By the time she made it into the back room, Dominique had lost it. She slumped onto a crate beside Garret, howling.

"It's not funny," he muttered.

"It's fucking hilarious," Dominique panted.

"I've made a complete fool of myself in front of half your family _and _two complete strangers who will probably never come back in here again," he snapped, getting up and going to straighten the shelves. "How is that funny?"

"Oh, come on, have a sense of humor," Dominique said, rolling her eyes.

"How am I supposed to do that when your whole family thinks I'm a completely perverted freak?"

"You're being dramatic," Dominique told him, sliding off the crate and getting between him and the shelf, winding an arm around his waist.

"Yeah?" he pouted.

"Yeah. They only think you're a little bit of a perverted freak."

She stretched up on her toes to kiss him and he softened a little.

"Well, it's hard to help myself around you, Have I told you lately that you're beautiful?" he whispered, running a thumb along her smooth, pale cheek.

She felt her stomach flutter. "Yeah, but you can never say it often enough."

She stifled a giggle as he swept her off her feet.

_5:42 P.M._

The dinner crowd was just pouring in, filling every table in the Leaky Cauldron and crowding the bar. The FIoo was a continual blaze of green, spitting people out left and right, and Hannah had started thanking Merlin each time a new arrival looked around the packed pub and decided to take their business elsewhere. Neville had yet to return and she was just about to melt into a puddle on the floor and tell everybody to just help themselves behind the bar and in the kitchen when the nightshift crew arrived.

"Oh, God bless you," Hannah breathed as Hillary swept in behind the bar and started directing drinks and Patrick, tying his apron, hurried into the kitchen. "I thought the cavalry would never come," she said breathlessly, sagging against the counter as she watched Patrick busy all eleven burners on the stove.

"Don't worry about a thing, Mrs. Longbottom," he grinned, flipping a bottle of steak sauce behind his back.

"I can help," Ami offered, getting up from where she'd been coloring with Miranda and looking thoroughly bored. "I'm not going anywhere, apparently."

"Ami, I'm sure someone will come through here that will be able to take you," Hannah sighed.

"Yeah, whatever," Ami mumbled, pulling down an apron that was too long for her and tying it behind her back.

"Here, be a big help and take this to table three for me as fast as you can," said Patrick, handing her a plate. "You can keep half the tips if you like."

"Really?" Ami asked, all but forgetting her withering shopping hopes.

"Sure thing," Patrick promised, winking at Hannah over Ami's head as she mouthed, "Thank you."

"Hey, boss, that bottle sitting out for someone?" Hillary asked, sticking her head around the door as Ami darted out of it.

"Oh, shoot! It's for Horatio. Neville must have left it." She wavered for a moment, looking at the overflowing orders board. "I did tell him I'd come see him… Neville probably won't stay longer than it takes to drop off his order… do you two have this covered for just a few minutes?"

"We've got it," Hillary assured her, gracefully weaving her way out the door with three trays of food.

"You really are lifesavers," she called after Hillary.

Then Hannah picked up the bottle and hurried out into the alley. Patrick was busy at the stove, Ami was counting out half her tip, and Hillary was pouring five glasses of whiskey at once. No one noticed Miranda slip out the door behind her mother, dark pigtails swinging.

_5:45 P.M._

A butterbeer cap sailed halfway across the alley and landed in Madam Malkin's flowerpot with a _cling _nobody heard.

"Five points for me. What d'you wanna do?' Fred asked, reveling in the evening sun which was just beginning to feel hot.

James shrugged sullenly. "How long before your _girlfriend _shows up and crashes the party?"

"Is that what you're tweaked about?" Fred inquired, raising an eyebrow. "You said it was fine this morning."

"Yeah, and it was fine this morning, just like it was fine at lunch yesterday and last weekend and every other bloody time we've had a free moment," he grumbled in a voice that suggested it was not fine at all.

"Are you jealous of Dorothy?" Fred asked incredulously, a smirk rising on his lips.

James just scowled at him.

"James, come on," Fred put a hand on James's shoulder and gave him a smoldering look. "If you really want some of this, I can find a deserted cupboard in five minutes."

"Oh, bugger off," James muttered, shoving his hooting cousin off the curb.

"Look, I'm all yours until tomorrow afternoon and then you're going to have to live without me for a couple hours so me and Dorothy can get it out of our system. So what shall we fill our time with? Hey, Jamie, we can apparate now!" He added as if just remembering, pounding on James's shoulder. "We can go all over the country. Fancy checking out the pubs in Nottingham? Skipping on down to the Channel?"

"Maybe later," James murmured. Something had caught his eye further down the street. A sour-faced, red-haired something. James started pushing his way through the crowd.

"What're you on about?' Fred asked, trying to follow his gaze.

"What's _she _doing here?" James muttered.

"Who?"

It was definitely Bennit. He couldn't mistake that fiery nest of vipers she passed off as hair. She was hurrying up the street as if Aurors were on her tail.

"I bet she's shoplifting."

"Earth to James. I may be an incredibly gifted person, but I still can't mind read."

James froze, sucking in a breath. His quarry had vanished. "Of _course_. Probably needs something particularly nasty to scare away her warts. Or maybe she's hoping to find a voodoo doll of me."

"Oh. Bennit's here," Fred said with dawning comprehension. He tugged at James's elbow. "Leave her be, mate. You detest her, she wishes maggots would eat your flesh, Diagon Alley couldn't handle such a loving reunion. The tabloids would go mad."

"Yeah? What about Knockturn Alley?" And James plunged after Madeline Bennit.

_5:47 P.M._

Albus threw out an arm to stop Rose and Scorpius as they emerged from the junk shop across from the dark entrance to Knockturn Alley.

"Oof," Scorpius grunted as Al caught him in the stomach, making him drop his bag of broken quills. (He liked to write with them rather than the handsome peacock feathers his father gave him, if only to drive his parents mad.) "Watch it, Potter."

But Albus was paying him no attention. He'd ducked down behind a board advertising half-off textbooks that had probably been required reading for Hogwarts students a hundred years ago and peered around the side.

"Al?" Rose asked distractedly, her nose buried in one of the textbooks she'd gotten half-price.

"Sh!" Albus hissed, waving frantically for them to get down.

Scorpius sighed and pulled Rose behind the sign, too, peering over Al's shoulder. All he saw was the milling crowd. Albus, however, looked around at him, face aglow with rare mischief.

"What d'you suppose James's doing down Knockturn Alley?" he whispered.

Scorpius immediately saw where this was going. "Oh, no. Al, come on, just leave –"

Rose snapped her book shut and turned suddenly-keen eyes on her cousin. "You saw him down Knockturn Alley?"

Albus nodded eagerly.

"Guys," Scorpius tried to insert, but it was like he'd vanished to them.

"Well, he's probably up to no good," Rose mused, but not in her typical, irritated voice.

"Oh, most definitely," Albus agreed. "You'd have to be quite the daredevil to wander into those parts with all those criminals and dark magic floating about."

"Yes, quite reckless and bold."

"You aren't seriously thinking about doing something this stupid just because of what James said?" Scorpius tried to interrupt again, but neither paid him any mind.

"The only reason you'd do it was to get a peek at some legally-questionable goods."

"Or to meet some unsavory sorts."

"Otherwise you'd be quite mental."

"Quite."

They stared at each other. Then Rose said slyly, "I dare you."

_5:50 P.M._

Molly leapt backward as a wad of spit sailed within an inch of her robes. The culprit, a bony man with sallow skin and a mane of dirty hair gave her a rotting grin.

"Eugh," Molly muttered under her breath, patting her hair. "Mr. Seymour," she said authoritatively, turning to the man behind the desk. "I have been waiting for twenty minutes. If Mr. Sinagra is here – and we have it on good authority that he is – I must speak to him. I may also remind you that harboring a suspect or concealing information – including witnesses – from the Ministry is illegal and will result in the loss of your Healing license and premises at the very least."

"This I'n't no hospital," the man behind the desk growled. "This 'ere's private property, Miss. An' I can do as I like in me own 'ome s'far as I can remember, cain't I? Don't 'ave to tell ya nothin' 'bout who's my company or what I done for 'em."

"Be that as it may, Mr. Seymour, it is still illegal to harbor a suspected criminal or withhold information –"

"Bleedin' Merlin, I 'eard ya the firs' twenty time," the man muttered, heaving himself up out of his chair. "Alright, alright, I'll go check an' see if 'e's up there, but I'm not makin' no promises, ya 'ear?"

"Very well," Molly agreed, clasping her hands in front of her and watching him expectantly.

He shuffled out of the room muttering about upstart Ministry birds.

_5:51 P.M._

Knockturn Alley was considerably less crowded than Diagon Alley, but even with that blessing, Madeline Bennit and her streak of bright red hair had vanished by the time Fred and James had turned the corner.

"Where d'you think she's gone?" James asked, peering through shop windows as he hurried down the cobblestone street.

"Why do you care so much?" Fred inquired exasperatedly. "Jamie, hasn't anyone ever told you not to poke a stalking dragon?"

"Thought it was sleeping."

"Nah, a stalking one is worse. They've already got blood on the brain. Which clearly Miss Bennit has if she's running about down here," Fred added in a tense whisper, giving a hunch-backed woman with a tray of what looked like human fingernails a very forced smile and pulling James to the other side of the street.

"Would you relax, Freddie? I just wanna see where the lovely Miss Bennit spends her holidays… so that I can brutally hang her out to dry in front of all our peers next term – get down!"

James pulled Fred into a crevice between two buildings just as the blue-uniformed Auror set to patrol the alley came around a bend.

"Merlin, Potter. Trying to give me a concussion?" Fred groaned, rubbing the back of his head where it had slammed against the uneven stone.

"I thought it might be Teddy," James murmured, watching the man pass down the middle of the alley. "But we're in luck. It's not. He won't recognize us. Not from far-off anyway. Come on."

_5:53 P.M._

Bill rubbed his knuckles and felt in the pocket of his robes for his wand. He didn't dare draw it here. That would be a death wish. But he still wanted to make sure it was there. You could never be too careful here. He thought of what he'd told Alfred when he'd clocked out early, about how he was headed home to celebrate with his kids. Nobody would think to look for him here.

"I knew you couldn't stay away," a smoky voice said and he whirled.

She leaned against the table behind him, cloak open to reveal very short robes and spiked heels. Bill looked uncomfortably toward the door where a thickly-muscled wizard stood, grim-faced, watching them with beady eyes.

"Have you got a room? I'd rather do this in private."

A playful, amused smile rose to her face as she watched him fidget, taking her time to answer. "Sure thing, love. So long as you've got the money."

He pulled a small pouch out of his pocket and shook it so she could hear the clink of coins. Her grin widened.

"Right this way."

_5:54 P.M._

Ron ran a finger gingerly along the rim of a barrel in the corner of the workshop. He examined the fine gray residue that came away before rubbing it off with his thumb and turning to his brother – or what he could see of him, anyway. George's legs stuck out from behind a heap of boxes as he rummaged for something.

"Does it ever make you nervous to know you've got a half-ton of concentrated, highly flammable gun powder sitting right below your bedroom?" Ron asked.

George emerged, dust bunnies clinging to his eyebrows but triumphantly holding the last pack of trick playing cards. He glanced at the enormous barrel and the shelves right above it stacked with his firework inventory as if he'd forgotten he had the makings of a bomb sitting in the back corner.

"Nah. It's got charms and stuff on it – at least I think it has. Suppose I should check that one of these days. Me and Ange are the only ones allowed in here and we know what we're doing."

Ron gave the keg a wide birth. "Still…."

George snickered. "Sweating are you, little bro?"

"No," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Have you forgotten what I do for a living? But he edged a little farther away from the powder all the same. "What're you making, anyway?"

He picked up one of the products arrayed on the table, the new flavor of Skiving Snack boxes.

"Filling orders," George explained, stepping back and waving his wand so that the brown packing paper spread like a tablecloth beneath the array of products neatly gathered itself and everything on it into a lumpy package. He plucked the Skiving Snackbox out of Ron's hand, stuffed it into the bulging sack, and sealed it with a final tap of his wand.

He heaved it off the table, but instead of carrying it over to the row of similar packages waiting to be picked up by owls, made for the door.

"Well, it's been a lovely chat, but business awaits. See ya later, Ron."

"What, you hand deliver now? On the busiest day of the year?" Ron inquired, catching the door of the workshop as it swung shut behind George.

"It's only going up the street. It'd cost more for an owl to take it than for me to just run it over. Look, I've really gotta get going, Ron. I said it'd be there by six and if it's late, it's free, and I'll charge _you_. If you're gonna hang around all day, make yourself useful and help a few customers –"

"George," Ron cut him off, eyes narrowed on the order list tacked to the wall beside the door. "Where are you taking that?"

George subtly shifted his hand to cover the address tag. "I told you, just up the street. I'll see you later."

"George!" In a flash, Ron was in front of him, blocking his way. And George appreciated for the first time why Harry had picked his goofy little brother as his second-in-command. "Please tell me that isn't going where I think it's going."

George rolled his eyes. "I do it every week, Ronnie. Keep your hair on."

"Every week?" Ron gaped.

"Yes," George sighed. "There's a bloke down there that likes to re-label all of it and try to pass it off as something more valuable on the black market. He pays well and keeps steady business. And if you haven't noticed, little bro, I'm still here to keep delivering to him and that's the way he likes it. Now be a good chap and let the grown-ups do business."

Very reluctantly, Ron stood aside. George could think what he wanted, but Ron had spent too many long, dark patrols down Knockturn Alley not to know what sort of shadows lurked under every door there. He watched his brother's retreating back anxiously.

"Don't worry about it," Angelina said, leaning over the counter. "On most days, it's barely a five minute delivery. He'll be fine."

Ron merely frowned. "He doesn't know what's down there." Angelina raised her eyebrows, but Ron forestalled her inquiry with a nod at the till, butting aside his frustration with difficulty. "Want some help with your customers?"

"Lily and Hugo can –" Angelina began, turning half-way toward the queue. She stopped when she saw the vacant till and the waiting line. "The moment you turn your back…."

Ron heaved a put-upon sigh. "I'll bet they went straight back to that creepy new divination shop up the street. I _told _them to stay away from there."

"Well, that was your first mistake, wasn't it?" Angelina said amusedly as Ron began shouldering his way toward the door.

"They'll've spent all their savings on dragons' teeth and moonstones before I get halfway there," he muttered grumpily, and he set off for Cry O' the Raven Talismans.

_5:56 P.M._

"Did you see that cloak?" Rose breathed as she, Albus, and Scorpius pushed their way out of another dark, dusty shop filled with creepy artifacts and a dodgy-looking clerk.

"The one with all the cobwebs sewn in it?" Al asked, shuddering.

"Not just sewn in, sewn in in runes that used to be burned out of scrolls because they were so dark," Rose told him in a hushed whisper.

"That's so –"

"Disturbing?" Scorpius supplied dryly from behind them.

"Cool!" Al exclaimed, bouncing a little with his exhilaration.

"Right?" Rose said excitedly. "I didn't know people were still using rune magic like that!"

Scorpius gaped at the pair of them. "Do you even hear what you're saying?" he demanded. "You two – of all people –"

"Relax," Albus told him, rolling his eyes. "It's not as if we want to _buy_ the things or anything. It's just – I mean, even if it is totally creepy, isn't there something impressive about the magic?"

"No," Scorpius said flatly. "There's nothing impressive about anybody who decides to make something like that." He crossed his arms and glowered. "Or sell it. Can we please get out of here now?"

"In a bit. Not all of us got to grow up in an old manor stuffed to the ceiling with dark artifacts, you know," said Rose, peering interestedly into a metal cage in front of the next shop.

"Well, you should count yourselves lucky," Scorpius muttered. He knew Al and Rose had no love for the Dark Arts, but it unsettled him to see how they walked through the alley as if it were a museum, reverently ogling all the things on display.

"I mean," Rose said, rounding on him impatiently. "We never got to see stuff like this. The Dark Arts has always just been this big scary shadow and we've never had any idea how it works or what it looks like. What's the harm in looking?"

"There are a lot of other people who _aren't _just looking," Scorpius answered, giving the street a dark look.

Rose didn't reply. Al was biting his lip, for a moment looking rattled back to reality, and Scorpius dared to think he'd gotten through. But then Al saw something over Scorpius's shoulder and that odd, mischievous look came over his face.

"Just one more shop, alright, Scorp?" he said, pulling something out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and already starting to cross the street.

"No. We need to get out of here," Scorpius insisted, pulling at Al's elbow. "Now."

Rose and Albus exchanged looks. "Since when have you decided to be assertive?" Rose asked.

Scorpius scowled at her. "I mean it. What if your dad catches us?"

"He won't," Albus said confidently, and he unfurled a long, silvery cloak. "What do you suppose old Borgin keeps in that back room of his?"

_5:58 P.M._

James pulled to a stop so suddenly that Fred, looking warily at a group of burly men gathered on a stoop ahead, smacked into him. The men snickered.

"Look," James hissed, pulling a bewildered Fred down to the dirty cobble stones.

"What?' Fred hissed back, starting to get annoyed with James's stupid quest. If it were anywhere else, he'd be all in for heckling Bennit a little, but she wasn't worth this place.

James pointed up at the window they were ducking under. Through the dusty panes Fred could just make out someone's blurry profile. Someone with long red hair.

"I knew she came down here," James breathed triumphantly.

"Right. We've found Waldo. Now what do you plan on doing?" Fred asked.

James's expression clouded for a moment. Evidently he hadn't thought this far ahead. But then a wide smirk spread across his face, and he shot to his feet, dusting off his jeans.

"Right, I think we'll need a table and some drinks," he said, pointing to the shabby sign above the door inscribed with a tarnished number 92 and 'Eye of the Serpent Tavern.'

_6:00 P.M._

"Hold it!"

Rose froze halfway across the threshold to Borgin and Burke's. Her insides seemed to turn to water, and she remembered why she didn't like breaking the rules.

"Rose Megan Weasley, what exactly are you doing?"

Rose closed her eyes for a second and turned around. Bill was striding up the street towards them, his graying hair swinging loosely about his scarred face and making the expression in his eyes all the more intimidating. She swallowed painfully.

"We just – were –" her voice faltered to a squeak as her uncle came to a stop in front of them, casting a long shadow over her.

Bill glanced at Scorpius. "Where's the third musketeer?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"In the junk shop, up that way," Rose said quickly, waving vaguely toward Diagon Alley and standing on Scorpius's foot as he opened his mouth.

Bill didn't look convinced. He peered over their heads into the gloomy shop windows. "And why did you leave him there?"

"He – he didn't want to come with us," Rose was trying to find the right balance between casual and nervous lest her uncle realize she was lying through her teeth, but it had been a long time since she'd had any practice. She thought of the prefect badge in her trunk, and her stomach squirmed with guilt. But then she thought of what James had said on the train and the guilt quickly burned away. "You know what Al's like. He won't even nick a biscuit from Gran. We just wanted to see what was down here, but he was too much of a chicken to come."

Bill pushed out a heavy breath. "Well at least one of you had some sense," he muttered. "It's dangerous down here," he told them severely. "I don't know what you were thinking. I thought you had more common sense, Rose."

"What are _you _doing down here, then?" Rose demanded, stung.

For a second – just a second – her uncle looked taken aback and Rose had the satisfaction of catching him as surely as he'd caught her.

"I work for the bank," he said gruffly. "They send me all over. And anyway, I'm not underage so I can go where I like." He grabbed them each by the shoulders and began steering them forcefully up the alley. "You'll be lucky if I don't tell your parents where you've been sneaking off to," he grumbled.

Rose and Scorpius had no choice but to shuffle along beside him.

_6:01 P.M._

A bottle of mead and a basket of crisps landed on the sticky table with a clatter.

"What. Do. You. Want?" Madeline Bennit planted her fists on her hips and glared at them suspiciously.

"The house special looks good," Fred told her, perusing the menu casually. "You know you'd get better tips if you smile."

"She'd scare away all the customers if she did that," James stage-whispered.

"Get out," Bennit snapped, pointing a sharp-nailed finger at the door. "I don't know what you're playing at coming round here, but you can ruddy well get out."

"You're an incredible saleswoman, Bennit," James deadpanned. "Must be that irresistible charisma."

"You bleeding piece of toad –"

"Maddy?" An old man with a grizzled gray beard had appeared from around the bar, a little girl with Bennit's wild red hair swinging off his hand. He raised his bushy eyebrows curiously at the two boys.

Bennit swung around, face burning crimson. "They know me from school –" she tried to explain as the man frowned at her.

"We're old friends," Fred said with the hint of laughter at the repulsed look she shot him over her shoulder. He stood and rested an elbow on Bennit's shoulder. "No need to worry. She couldn't offend us if she tried."

"And believe us, she has," James added genially.

"Oh, alright then," the man nodded, still looking slightly confused. "Well, Maddy-paddy, we've got some errands to run. Auntie's round back if you need some help." He nodded toward a side room where a raucous clamor rose from a group of burly, rather violent-looking people around a dart board. "I imagine the dinner crowd'll be in soon. Do you're… er, friends want to hang around behind the bar until you're off?" he added, casting another bemused look at Fred and James.

"No," Bennit pushed out through gritted teeth. "They really have to be going."

"Well… er, whatever they want," the man said, clearly wrong-footed. "Come on, Calla. Best be on our way."

The little girl skipped beside him as he shuffled for the door. It seemed to take a painfully long time for them to disappear; but the moment they'd gone, Bennit threw off Fred's arm and he wiped his hand on his trousers as if he'd put it in something foul.

"Aw, Maddy-paddy, you're so cute when you try to kill me with your eyes," James crooned. He ducked swiftly as a handful of tarnished silverware went flying at his head. "Oo, in a bit of a mood, though."

"You've had your fun!" she snarled at them. "You can march back to school and tell all the pure-blood snots I share a dorm with that I live in a dirty pub beside a garbage heap, alright? Do you think I give a damn what they think or what you think or what anyone thinks?"

"Keep your hair on, Bennit, we're not going to blackmail you," Fred drawled, rolling his eyes.

"Nah, not now we know you come from a tough neighborhood like this," James added, pretending to bite his nails nervously.

An odd look came over Madeline Bennit's face then. "Half my neighbors would pay twice the price of this place for your head, Potter," she said darkly.

"Well, it's disappointing to find out I'm worth so little," James replied. He laughed, but something crawled up his spine.

Fred gave him a weird look. "Bennit's right. We've had our laugh, and we'll be on our way." He moved toward the door.

"But we've only just got here," James said indignantly, never one to let Bennit be right. He reached for the bottle of mead and wrenched out the cork. "Now, does the special come with the cries of helpless puppies or is that something you charge extra for?"

Bennit's lip curled. "The world is just slime on your boots, isn't it, Potter?"

"Come on, James," Fred said more seriously, tugging on James's collar. "Aren't you supposed to have dinner with your parents or something?"

"Yes, go run along back to your sodding war-hero lineage before their golden spill-over gets rubbed off of you in this place," Bennit said scathingly, snatching the basket of crisps back.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" James demanded, nonplused.

"What would you be without them?" Bennit asked, whirling halfway to the bar and fixing her dark emerald eyes on his face. Contempt practically oozed from her. "Tell me that, Potter. Marching in here like you're a mighty lord, like just because your daddy comes down here from time to time and arrests half the street to make England feel safe again, you're better than all of us."

James was surprised to feel the cut of her words, and even more surprised to find they'd brought him to his feet. "Me and my father are better than the lot of you because we're not bigoted, heartless _criminals_," he hurled at her with all the righteousness he could.

"James," Fred said uneasily, still halfway between their table and the door. Their argument had caught the attention of a few of the dart-players, who leered around the doorframe at them. Bennit gave a soft laugh.

"_You_ aren't bigoted?" she asked on a breath.

Fury blazed behind James's eyes. He was almost nose-to-nose with her in two swift strides, a thousand diatribes clamoring in his throat, a thousand retaliations begging to be shot back.

_6:05 P.M._

And that was when the world was ripped apart.

**A/N: I told you it was cliffy. Literally cliffy, too, not just suspenseful. Sorry about that, but I've got to keep you coming back somehow. Anyway, so like I was saying, I've only got the next chapter started, so I have no idea how long it will take to finish. My excuses and other update info can be found at the bottom of my profile if you're interested. I'll try to post a word-count-progress thing for this story so you know I'm actually working on it. Maybe I'll even do teasers! I dunno, keep an eye on my profile though, if you want information. **

**This chapter was nice and long, though, wasn't it? A reviewer actually commented that the first chapter was TOO long, and this one was 3,000 words longer, so… oops. I'm planning on shooting for 5,000/6,000 words a chapter with quite a few chapters, so just be ready for a long haul, I guess. **

**Thank you guys all for your lovely words and interest! I love to hear from you! **


	3. 6:05 PM

**A/N: Considering how long it took me to write the first two chapters, a month is practically lightning speed for me. I'll apologize nonetheless, but this is probably what it will be like update-wise. Right, well, thanks to everyone who's reviewed and lent their support! You might not believe me, but it keeps me going. **

_6:05 P.M. _

It was like a clap of thunder had crashed to the ground. Like the sun had fallen from the sky. Like the very cobblestones were opening up and a great breath from the earth's molten core was rushing up upon them. It was light so blindingly bright and then black so blindingly dark. It was noise so loud it was silent, wind so violent it was suffocating, and heat that froze the blood. The ground shook, buildings crumbled, people were flung in all directions. There was chaos, and at first, no one knew where it came from.

…

Ron had just stepped into the street across from Cry O' the Raven.

…

Rose had just caught sight of her father a few shops away and seized Scorpius's elbow, diving into the junk shop.

…

Bill had just started back toward the bank, trying to decide if he should tell his brother about Rose's excursions or not.

…

Neville had been weaving his way hurriedly back toward the pub, thinking Hannah would kill him for chatting with George and being so late.

…

And then the blast came, shattering the air and rolling between the buildings with an almighty force. Ron was thrown backward, smashing into the wall behind him. The junk shop windows were blown out and the shelves came crashing down. Bill was sent skittering twenty feet across the cobbles, tumbling like a loose leaf. Neville was knocked off his feet, tangled in the mess of the crowd, which swiftly turned into a mob rushing toward the alley mouth, heedless of the fallen. All around, bricks and beams and flaming debris tumbled down, and screams rose to the blackening sky.

_6:05:20_

Neville felt the crowd swarming over and around him even as his vision was obscured by thick dust and sound came as though from miles away. The vibration of hundreds of pounding footsteps reverberated through the stones beneath him up into his skull. Someone leapt over him and came down a breath away from his cheek. A boot landed on his back and pushed all the air out of him with a cry that no one heard. He tried to get his feet under him, to pull free of the tangle of limbs and push himself upright, but someone else tripped and fell on top of him, slamming him again into the ground.

This was what it was like to drown, he thought dimly as he tried to get air into his lungs. All he could see above him was blurred bodies and a rare snatch of black sky. He was drowning. He pushed for the surface, but each time he was knocked down, pulled down, held down. His cheek was against the smooth cobblestone again and all he knew was the press of moving bodies; he was drowning, drowning, drowning in a sea of people.

_6:05:30 _

Merchandise rained from the walls, shelves toppled like dominoes, and the teaming crowd in Weasleys' Wizard Weezes turned to a stamped for the exit. Angelina felt the spray of glass from the front display window cut like icy rain as she dove under the counter. The foot of the stairs was all she could see from there.

"Roxanne!" she yelled through the thunderous cascade of shelves and products. "Lucy!"

She could hear their voices, she thought, yelling upstairs and made to crawl for the steps, but as she squirmed her way free of the counter, there was a shriek of metal. She looked up and the last thing she saw, as if in slow-motion, was the stock shelf wrenching away from the wall in front of her.

_6:05:33_

It sounded like the building was falling in. The Warehouse was filled with shrieks and shocked cries as the braziers sputtered into darkness. Victoire's window cast her in a spotlight as she leapt from her chair, disoriented, ducking the books toppling from the filing cabinet in a fountain of dust.

There was a blinding flash of light and Victoire choked on the smell of smoke as a renewed volley of screams rose up.

"Chris!" she shouted, groping for his elbow in the dark. "Put your bloody camera away!"

"If that picture doesn't make it into _some _publication, I'm starting my own just for it," Chris's eager voice sounded in her ear. "Well, this is one way to end the workday with a bang. What d'you reckon's happened? Someone overheat the printing press again?"

A crack like a gunshot made Chris dive to the ground, pulling Victoire with him. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that her window had cracked, jagged lines veining their way not just through the thick glass blocks, but the brick wall and plaster ceiling around them.

"Or maybe not…" Chris murmured, staring as a crevice split the cement floor between them.

_6:05:35_

"Mum!" Louis shouted as the floorboards beneath him creaked and heaved. He stumbled into the counter and his mother was thrown to the floor.

"What's happening?" Garret demanded, only staying upright because he'd been holding Dominique.

"Mum?" Dominique squealed, craning to see over Garret's thick arm.

The roaring blast was still ringing in their ears. The glass in the windows had splintered. The sunlight that had been pouring in had been snuffed out. Then they heard the screaming.

Fleur struggled to her feet, pulling herself up on a display tower. Her beautiful face was ashen as she staggered to the windows. "Stay back," she ordered hoarsely when Dominique made to follow her, and when she turned to them, her eyes were full of a fear that chilled Louis to the bone.

_6:06:00 _

Teddy was halfway down the corridor when the department went mad. He ignored the first blaring siren. He'd clocked out for the day, changed out of his work robes, and was so close to freedom, he could almost taste it. Now it was the evening shift's problem. In five minutes, he and Travis would be downing whiskey in the Hog's Head with Rob. If he could just make it to the lifts –

And that was when the second alarm went off, in the obliviator's office. The rest came almost all at once, too loud and fast for him to make sense of them. Obliviators, Hit Wizards, and MLE officials came skidding into the corridor, tearing in all directions in a storm of chaos. Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice thundered through the passages, calling for people to be in his office. Lights were flashing like crazy in the small room at the end of the hall where a glowing map of Britain showed all traceable signs of magic. And above it all, there was the thrumming honk that warned the MLE emergency teams assembling that they were heading into a class A danger zone.

Teddy knew he wasn't making it to the pub even before the red werelight found him, whizzing urgently around his head and calling him back for immediate deployment. He had already turned on his heal, wand drawn, and was hurtling back up the corridor.

_6:07:15_

Neville was back in the dark waters of the Irish Sea. Blackpool Pier was but a shadow against the watery sun floating on the gray surface high above his head. He should keep fighting, he thought. He should do something other than drift. If he had any magic at all, this would be the time to _use _it. But there was a rushing in his ears and a numbness in his limbs and he couldn't think anymore. _This was what it was like to drown_.

And then strong hands were on his arms, pulling him up, hauling him back to the surface. But it wasn't his Great Uncle Algea like it had been thirty-five years before, and it wasn't the wet, cold, gray-green seaside. There was fire and smoke and heat to greet him this time, and it was dust he was choking on, not water. Dizzy, he stumbled and would have crashed headfirst into the pavement if someone hadn't grabbed his shoulders.

There was a lot of red and orange and yellow everywhere and it took Neville a second to distinguish George Weasley from everything else around them. He was shouting something, but Neville couldn't hear. George ducked his head and shouted right in his ear.

" – you okay? Can you walk?" His voice sounded like it came through water. He was already pulling Neville's arm around his neck, dragging him a few staggering steps with the crowd.

Neville felt like he'd gone over the edge of a cliff and landed on the jagged rocks below, and the world was moving too much for him to think about doing anything but standing still.

"What happened?" he shouted back, still gasping, struggling to connect the dots of the last few minutes.

"I don't…." George's eyes suddenly grew wide. He let go of Neville, taking a half-step past him. The look of rising horror on his face made Neville turn. Lights danced against the low, black belly of pluming smoke. Rust, gold, emerald, violet, they made him think of the Northern lights but much closer and brighter and… louder. It didn't make sense.

"Fire," he heard George say hoarsely beside him. "Fire."

The flames were leaping from building to building, raging across rooftops like winged beasts and rearing their fearsome maws ever higher into the smoke, much stronger and fiercer and wilder than the little spitting flames clinging to the debris. This was real fire. Almost as one, George and Neville swiveled around to follow its trajectory up the street. The book shop, Madam Malkin's, a magical print shop… the luridly bright WWW sign stood out like a beacon in the smoke, and at the very head of the alley, the Leaky Cauldron squatted low and dark and teaming with people. Together they began to run, fighting their way through the crowd and soon losing sight of one another as their thoughts narrowed to racing the flames.

_6:08:23_

"Stay down," Fleur commanded, pulling Louis non-too-gently to the floor. They were pressed together among the crates and litters of inventory in the back room of Quality Quidditch Supply, but they could hear people pounding on the doors and windows.

"Shouldn't we let them in?" Louis asked uncertainly, looking over his shoulder.

"No," Fleur said fiercely. "Somezing 'orrible 'az 'appened, and we do not know 'oo eez part of it. Get down and pretend you are not 'ere. Zat eez what zey 'ad us do at ze bank when zere were raids during ze war. Don't speak, don't move. Zey will go somewhere else."

There was no room for defiance. Louis looked across the dim, cluttered room to where Dominique and Garret were half on top of each other between barrels of practice snitches, Garrets muscular arms wound protectively around her, and he was too busy whispering words of comfort against her ear to pay attention to anything else. But his sister confirmed his thoughts with a look. They did not have their mother anymore, but a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

_6:08:45_

All Roxanne could see was a heap of shining steel. The heavy, box-laden industrial shelving her father had charmed to the wall some five years ago filled the stairwell, twisted, immovable, a gate penning them in. The thunderous volley of crashes and screaming that had risen between the floorboards from the shop had drowned out their shouts, but even now that it had grown quiet downstairs, neither of her parents answered her. Her stomach felt heavy with fear for what that might mean, but she ignored it, focusing all her energy on the shelving blocking her way.

"There's riots in the street," Lucy called from the tiny balcony they had overlooking the alley., smoke pouring in through the open window.

Maybe she could blast it out of the way, Roxanne thought, feeling at her waist for her wand. But it wasn't there. It was in her trunk, and that was still downstairs in the back room because their flat had protective enchantments around it to stop things just appearing there unbidden. An extra safety protocol her uncles had insisted on ever since the disappearances started. She cursed it under her breath and cursed herself twice as hard for being stupid enough to forget about her wand.

There was a skidding sound from the roof and Roxanne whirled just as Lucy screamed and dove back inside, arms over her head. A flaming sheet of shingles had landed on the balcony, cracking the little glass table Roxanne's mother had added since the last time she'd been home.

"Where did it come from?" Roxanne asked, a newer, greater fear budding alongside the others. She crossed to Lucy in two swift strides and pulled her up, but before her trembling cousin could offer so much as a squeak in reply, she had her answer. A low roar rushed above their heads, below the floor, from the other side of the wall. The snarling of flame.

Acting on a sudden, fear-crazed instinct, Roxanne seized Lucy's wrist and bolted – knowing full well there was nowhere to bolt _to_ – just as the floor erupted in a fountain of multicolored flames and shrieking fireworks.

_6:09:01_

"What are you doing, Weasley?" Chris demanded, catching her wrist as Victoire made to stand up.

"We're not supposed to move," Sharon Higgs, the crossword writer, reminded her in a high, breathless voice.

It was almost completely black down in the Warehouse. They had been herded against the back wall, pressed together like baby mice in a burrow, blind and helpless and ignorant of what was happening around them. Victoire couldn't sit here like this with plaster raining down on top of them and the walls crumbling all around. Claustrophobia was already clawing up her chest and clouding her thought. She had to move, to do something, to _get out_.

"I'm going to have a look," she said quietly, lest the security wizards who'd leapt into action hear and put her under a body bind. Niles Elken had already been subdued. But she had a plan. She'd gone over the routes from here to the far doors again and again, mentally winding her way between the desks as if it were one of the ballet routines her Aunt Gabby used to teach her.

She felt Chris's fingers loosen around her wrist, slide down to her fingertips. "The stairs are blocked, they said." He murmured uncertainly.

"The lift might not be," she murmured back. "Even if the pulleys aren't working, I could levitate it." The thought made her queasy, but staying here made her want to fight her way out of her skin.

He pinched her fingertips hard. "You've got guts, girl. More guts than a fish market's bin even has a right to have." His hand fell away and for a moment her courage wavered. She'd hoped to have backup, but she could do without. Then she felt him rise beside her, his elbow brushing hers. "I just hope your guts don't get us killed."

_6:09:04_

"_Ange!_ Ange, get up! Come on, you've got to get up!"

There was a great, screaming creak and a weight vanished off of Angelina's shoulders, but she could still feel the burning metal against her skin. Someone was lifting her off the ground, resting her head against a broad shoulder. She could feel them tremble.

"Angelina?" That voice was higher than it should have been, lost and cracked. She didn't have a choice but to follow it.

Angelina cracked her eyelids open with great effort, fighting not to be sick when light flooded in. George's face was inches from hers, white and terrified. "Don't think you're getting rid of me that easily after everything you've put me through," she managed. "I'm hanging on until you pay your debts." Her voice was rough and low, but he actually laughed a little. "The – the girls," she croaked, trying to sit up as urgency seeped back into her.

But before she could get much further, another deafening bang rattled the building. George threw himself over her, blocking the flying debris, but Angelina still felt the rush of heat and heard the roar of flames. The shop was on fire. The shop was on _fire_.

"The girls!" she cried, choking on the smoke and burning ash. She fought to get up, pushing George off of her.

"Where are they?" he asked frantically, pulling her off the floor and grabbing her shoulder to steady her. She bit back a scream of pain as his fingers dug into the burns the metal shelving had seared across her shoulder blades.

"Up –"Angelina broke off, looking toward the stairs. Her vision was blurry, but she could see the wall of flames licking its way down the steps and climbing hungrily up the walls, silhouetting the twisted metal blocking the stairs like a skeleton.

"_Aguamenti!_" George cried, and Angelina fumbled for her wand to add a second stream of water. But it was no good; everything was burning. George swept his wand in a great arch and a ceiling of water crashed down over them, drenching everything. But the fire burned on, undampened.

"Cursed," Angelina spluttered, shielding her face from the cloud of burning steam. It couldn't be ordinary flames. She thought of the fireworks they kept in their back room, of the barrel of gunpowder, the bottles and bags and jars of all kinds of potent ingredients, and who _knew _what effect they might have on flames?

"Roxanne!" George yelled, lunging for the stairs, ignoring the fire. "Lucy!" He blasted the melting shelving out of the way, but the wood gave way two steps up, the railing falling in flaming bits.

"George!" Angelina yelped as he staggered back.

"Roxanne!" George screamed again.

The seconds stretched thin and they stood frozen as the fire blazed around them. And then – there was a thin cry, so drowned by the roaring, cracking fire that Angelina didn't know if she'd really heard it, but it was enough.

George grabbed Angelina's wrist and dragged her away from the crumbling stairs, stooping to snatch something from under the register.

"Can you fly?" he shouted in her ear.

"What?" her head was swimming. She was struggling to keep up with him.

"Fly!" he bellowed, and she realized it was a broom he'd grabbed from under the counter and was shoving into her hands. They'd reached the door and George pushed her out of it. He said something else that she couldn't hear.

"Where are you going?" she screamed as he ducked back inside.

George turned back to her. He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her hard on the mouth. Then he shoved her away. "Go! Get the girls!"

And he disappeared back into the collapsing shop.

_6:11:13_

The Leakey Cauldron had been closed in. MLE officials in dark, sweeping robes stood a firm line, blocking the door and the two large fireplaces for Floo travel. No one was allowed to leave, but people kept pouring in from the alley, frantic and battered and filthy. They were crammed so tightly together, Neville could barely shoulder his way between them, and they spilled out the back door and into the alley. Several people sat on the stairs, restrained with magical binding, having apparently attempted to duel their way past. The sound of the raging fires swelled from the alley and whipped a frothy hysteria in the already-panicked crowd.

"My daughters!" Neville kept shouting although no one seemed able to hear him over the din. "My wife! Where are they? My wife owns the bloody place, let me through!"

An edge of the bar appeared through the shifting mass, and Neville grabbed for it as if it were a life raft in a stormy sea. Hilary was guarding the till, armed with a serving tray and looking fierce. When Neville grabbed her shoulder, she swung at him without even looking. Neville ducked, and the tray went soaring over the crowd like a Frisbee as Hilary realized who he was and her hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh, Mr. Longbottom, I'm so sorry!" she gasped.

"It's fine," he said distractedly, looking around at the rough, wooden walls, ancient floorboards. "Where're Hannah and the girls?" The flames hadn't reached here yet, but when they did, they would be standing in three-hundred-year-old kindling. He didn't care if MLE sent him to Azkaban, he was getting his family out of here.

Hilary sucked her lip, twisting the hem of her apron. "I'm not sure. I –" She broke off, looking toward the kitchen door. There was no time and no way to get around, so Neville clambered over the bar. Patrick nearly took his eye out with a spatula when he pushed his way through the swinging doors, but Neville was getting good at ducking.

"I thought you were one of them," Patrick panted, jerking a thumb toward the teaming dining hall. "They're mad," he said, wide-eyed. "They tried to come back here, wanted to get out the window or somethin', but I held 'em off." He brandished his spatula.

Neville barely heard. He could see Ami's honey-blond head under the sink and crossed to her in two long strides, dropping to his knees. She threw herself into his arms, shaking.

"Where's your sister?" He demanded, peering into the shadows for Miranda, but Ami just shook her head against his shoulder. Neville pulled back to look down into her face. "Ami, where is she? What's happened to her? Where's your mother?"

"Mum – Mum left after you did," Ami whispered, tears sparkling in her gray eyes. "You left the ale, and she wanted to talk to Mr. Horatio. I don't know where Miranda went!"

"Weren't you watching her?" Neville cried more angrily than he meant to as terror shot through him. Ami's face crumpled.

"It wasn't her fault," Patrick said loyally from the door. "Me and Hil were meant to keep an eye on them, but it was a madhouse here. I looked away for five seconds and she was gone. You know how quick she is."

But there wasn't time for Miranda to be missing, for Hannah to be gone.

"I'll bet she was after that bloody cat," Neville muttered, almost to himself. "I've got to go find them."

He made to get up, but Ami clung to his arms. "What are they doing out there, Daddy? What do they _want_?"

"They're just scared," Neville told her, running a hand over her hair. He pulled her out from under the sink and propelled her toward the little door to the wash room. "Take her through the window," he said to Patrick. "Get Hillary, too, and damn the till. The place is going to be burning in five minutes, anyway. I'll meet you at Millman's when I've got them."

_6:12:47_

Lucy screamed as the kitchen wall fell in. Roxanne wished she wouldn't. Oxygen was too hard to come by to waste on screaming. She leaned as far as she dared out the window, but smoke was billowing out past here, burning her eyes and getting in her mouth.

"We're going to burn alive," Lucy wailed, huddled on the other side of the window.

"No, we're not," Roxanne told her calmly. More calmly than she felt. She was squinting down, trying to see the side of the building through all the smoke. There was an eave somewhere just below them, she knew it. If she could spot it, maybe they could climb down. _Think_, she told herself urgently. How often had she leaned out this window? She closed her eyes, trying to picture it in her head, but she'd always been looking _out _at the alley, at the sprawl of London, not _down_ at the eaves.

"I'm sorry I was swatty about your nail varnish," Lucy sniffed, and when Roxanne looked over, she could see tear tracks streaking her cousin's grimy face.

Roxanne gritted her teeth. "You weren't swatty, you just had more important things on your mind than a stupid bottle of polish, but I really don't give a damn about it at the moment, Lu." It was all she could do to keep from snarling. Sweat was running down her face and she could feel the counter burning and buckling under her palms. She didn't dare look behind her.

_6:13:25_

Dominique didn't panic when the flames first budded in the corner of the store room, spreading their bright, yellow-orange petals like the first blossoms of the year. Her mother was busy barricading the door, for another blast, nearer this time they all thought, but none of them said it, had finally shattered the windows. It was easy to notice the flames in the near-darkness with the lamps cracked and the one window boarded. She and Garret and Louis, who was all but body-bound in the corner for all the times he'd tried to sneak a peek at the street, all noticed them at the same time, but none made a sound.

Silently, Dominique aimed her wand as best she could in the dark and shot a spout of water into the corner. They all knew it was pointless, that more flames would follow soon enough, and even four thin streams of water weren't going to hold them back. But when the jet ricocheted off the dancing light as if it were made of golden tourmaline, she did feel a distinct plummeting of her stomach.

"Mum," she said with a strange and utter serenity.

"What eez eet, ma chere?" Fleur turned, her look hard and intense, warning that whatever Dominique was daring to voice should be worth their lives.

There was a sound like ripping paper. Maybe it was louder, but to Dominique, it seemed no more significant that tearing a scrap of parchment to jot down a note. And then the room was awash in angry orange, red, purple.

"OUT! GET OUT!" Fleur screamed.

Dominique and Garret were already stumbling to their feet, pulling each other up, tripping over boxes and barrels. As by magnetic attraction, Fleur had found her youngest even through the thick black smoke. Unable to see anything but the leaping flames and the darkness that claimed everything else, Dominique felt her way along the back wall. The door to the back of the shop was in the same corner the flames had erupted through, but getting all the way across to the main shop through the clutter of inventory and her mother's barricade was far more dangerous.

"Here!" she tried to shout, choking on ash. Her hand had found the scalding medal handle of the door. Flames were leaping at her feet, hissing over her head, and the handle felt like it was burning straight through her palm, but she pushed down on it with all her might and pulled. The door opened in, swinging Dominique back into the wall, but for an instant she gulped down less-charred air.

As she wriggled out from behind the heavy, industrial door, she saw her brother stop short, shying away from the flames that wreathed their only escape. And even though he was barely a year younger than she was, in that instant he was her baby brother. His mouth was open in silent terror, and she wanted to scream at him to get the _fuck _out because she'd just about burned her hand off getting the way open for him, but the smoke smothered her. Then Fleur was there, and she wrapped Louis in her shimmery shawl and sent all six feet five inches of him tumbling through the flaming doorway in a rugby tackle, her long, slender braid whipping like a blazing serpent behind her.

Garret was just ahead of her. "I've got you," she heard him promise over the crackling, and his strong hand locked around her wrist to pull her forward. Her face was nearly pressed into his back, and his broad, muscular girth blocked the worst of the heat and smoke. They were going to be alright.

Daylight – although it wasn't real, golden daylight but a garish, red-and-black-and-gray twilight – was already curling its fingers around them when the beam fell. She didn't see it from behind the shield of Garret's shoulders, but she heard the snapping, wrenching splinter, the cry of breaking wood and metal right above their heads.

She had less than a heartbeat to think. Garret was more than double her size, but as her mother had found the force to hurl Louis to safety, Dominique drove into Garret's back with all her might, and it was just enough to send him stumbling through the doorway. His silhouette, which had taken up all her vision, was swallowed by the light coming through the doorway, and she could see the beam flying at her, all ablaze. There was a moment when she could count all the jewel-bright colors in the heart of the flames rushing at her face. _That _was the moment Dominique started to panic. And then the beam struck in an explosion of light and pain.

_6:13:26_

The smoke was so bad that Angelina couldn't even see the side of the building. She could feel the brick walls looming over her in what couldn't have been more than a five-foot-wide alley, but she could only grope her way along, how far above the ground she couldn't tell. She could see the broom handle in front of her and nothing else. The last time she'd been this disoriented and terrified on a broom was in her fifth year, the game they'd played in a raging thunderstorm and she'd thought she'd seen Harry tumble and smash on the ground below.

She clawed her way, hand over hand, along the rough, grimy bricks; she might pass inches below or above the windows and never know, and all the while, sand was trickling through the hourglass. It was no good shouting. Her voice was so hoarse and choked by the smoke that even if she could get enough air in her lungs to do it, the sound wouldn't make it past her nose.

This had to be a nightmare. When she first found out she was pregnant, she used to wake up in a panic from dreams like this, nightmares in which the house was burning or flooding or under attack and try as she might, she couldn't reach her baby. She would wake soon, wake and find George in his dead-to-the-world sleep next to her with an arm thrown across her chest, and her limbs curled protectively around the tiny bulge of their child. But until then, she must keep going.

Angelina's hand found a ledge a foot above her head. She'd just started to pull herself up, brushing aside the shards of glass that marked it as a window, when a plume of flame rushed like dragon's breath inches over her head. Her fingers were saved from being charred by a breath, but a strangled sob welled in her chest. This was the far wall. If the flames had made it this far….

She tightened her grip until the ledge bit into her palm and for a moment could not think. _All a nightmare._

Fingers closed around her wrist so sudden and tight they made wrenched a cry from her rough, raw throat. Her heart pounding in her mouth, Angelina looked up. The first thing she saw was the fingernails, glittering with pink polish that was quickly changing to violet under the smears of soot. Then a gust blew the smoke away and for just a second she could see her daughter's face, surrounded by her main of curly black braids. Another sob coiled around her lungs.

_6:13:58_

"Are you ready for this, Weasley?" Chris murmured through the bars of the lift.

Victoire couldn't see him even though he was only inches away from her. The lift was already rattling as the building shook. She tightened her grip on the grate until her knuckles were surely white and nodded. Then remembered he couldn't see her and breathed out a yes. His hand ghosted over her knuckles and then she felt him step back.

The lift began to rise, jerking and clanging against the sides of the shaft and every now and again plunging a foot or two. Victoire huddled on the floor, remembering something she thought her grandfather or her Aunt Hermione had said once about surviving a falling elevator.

Then two things happened at once. A chink of burning, orange light hit the top of the lift, and the whole building started to shake.

_6:14:11_

In the end, Patrick had had to hoist Hilary off her feet and half-carry her away from the till. Even as she howled, people were jumping the counter. Ami had seen a few stop at the till, but most sought the unguarded kitchen door. The possibility of escape was worth more than all the treasures in the bowels of Gringotts.

But there was no escape to be had. The only door led back into the alley and Patrick had boarded up the window behind them after they'd bundled Ami through it.

"Why?" Amy had gasped tearfully as he and Hilary pulled her along the dark, reeking alleyway that led to Muggle London. She thought of her father's words, that the whole place would be up in flames, and choked on a sob at the thought of all those people trapped and screaming like livestock.

"MLE was arresting people for trying to leave," Patrick panted, seizing her wrist and yanking her faster. "They issued an official order. We're breaking the law by running, but if they think we left through the front before they got there, there's nothing they can do."

"But all those people," she snuffled.

"There were too many," Hilary told her. Her voice was meant to be gentle, but it came out jagged from the running. "You couldn't evacuate the entire alley through a back window, and even if ten or twenty got out…."

"No one knows what the hell happened," Patrick grunted as the blinding light of Muggle London came into view at the mouth of their alleyway.

Once they burst out onto the packed streets screaming with cars and busses and all else, Londoners hurrying about their evening without out the faintest inkling of what was happening right beside them, there was no more way to talk. Ami clunk tightly to Patrick and Hilary's hands as tears made a shining blur of everything around her and tried not to think about the people back at the pub, or about her mother or father or little sister.

_6:14:12_

George hadn't known the kids were back there. In all honesty, he'd gone back into the flames for completely selfish and reckless reasons, knowing full well that if he made it out alive, Angelina would kill him herself. The kids in the back room turned him from idiot to hero, and he should have taken it as a sign and given up the fool's errand. But he couldn't.

They were around twelve with messy hair and Skiving Snackboxes still jammed in their pockets. Not twins but definitely brothers, and the sight of them sent a jolt to his stomach. One of them had a shirt bearing the message 'keep calm and whistle casually'. Shelves had fallen on top of them, pinning one by his leg and the other across the back. Flames already shimmered across the curtained doorway and ran along the ceiling and they were swiftly consuming the pile of fallen shelving.

George never remembered getting them out. One second he was meeting their wide, terrified eyes, the next he was staggering out the door again with an arm around each of them. He should have stayed with them and looked after their burns, should have delivered them to the Healers or Ministry Officials who were no doubt swarming by now. He should have found his wife and daughter to see that they were alright or gone looking for his son, his brothers, his nieces and nephews all lost in the chaos.

But instead he turned around and ran again into the inferno.

He couldn't see anymore. Flames and smoke and blackened debris all swirled into senseless confusion. But he knew which direction to go and there was no turning around.

The shop was lost. He had known it since he'd seen the flames repel water. He could not save it any more than he could rewind the clock. But it wasn't just _his _business that was crumbling to ash around him, this was _Fred's _business, his brother's last dream, his brother's only legacy.

George ducked under a falling beam and scrambled over a flaming display table. Long ago he had cleaned out the flat to make room for Angelina, then the small bedroom they had once shared at the Burrow; Fred's clothes, his books, posters, and knickknacks had all been boxed up and given away. Even the collection of Weasley jumpers. Everything that had once been Fred's had long ago scattered to the winds. This building was the last of his things, and it was burning.

And then he was there. He knew it only because of the fireworks still exploding in the flames, their screams rising with the smoke. George stumbled, the heat and smoke making him lightheaded, but he could see the photo, miraculously still hanging on a post that should have crumbled into the fire a long time ago. George made a wild lunge and his fingers closed around the sharp edge of the picture frame. The glass had shattered and the photo was singed around the edges, but they were still there, outside the shop on the day it had first opened, eighteen and grinning as if they had the whole world in their pockets.

George turned his head in the direction he thought the door might be in, but he could see only black smoke and walls of fire. He tried to climb to his feet, but he was coughing too hard. Everything was growing blurry and spinning, the flames were towering over him, surrounding him as if in claim.

_You stupid, selfish bastard,_ he thought, but one hand clutched the photo and he couldn't find remorse.

_Get up! _Someone was screaming it, he thought. _Get up, get up, it's not worth it! Angelina and the kids and Mum and Dad... who'd be there to give Percy a hard time? Who would Ginny practice Bat Bogey Hexes on? They need you, they need you. _But he couldn't get up. He couldn't...

Someone was yanking him, pulling him by his collar, his hair, his elbow, dragging him across burning ashes.

"Come on, Georgie, move!" and they kicked him. _Move!_ He got a leg under himself and lurched forward. "That's it, Georgie-porgie, keep going." They grabbed him under the armpits like a little kid to hoist him up, throwing one of his arms around strong shoulders.

The next thing he knew, he was falling onto rough stones, coughing and retching and gasping in sweet lungfulls of air.

"You bloody moron!" and someone smacked him upside the head.

George rolled over, squinting in the light. It was Bill sprawled next to him on the pavement, coughing and sucking on the air and still clutching his arm in an iron grip. His gray-streaked ponytail was half burned away and his dragon-hide jacket in tatters, but it was his big brother come to save his arse.

"I could wring your neck," Bill wheezed, but instead he pulled George toward him in a rough hug, pounding on his back. "What the _hell_?" he demanded when he let him go, though.

Wordlessly, George held up the picture. He could feel the sting of tears now, feel the cool tracks they left down his filthy cheeks. He didn't dare look behind him at the burning building.

_6:14:30_

They were whispering, and at first, Ron couldn't make sense of it. It was dark and his whole body hurt and he couldn't really hear anyway. But then some words started to come to him.

"…Risa says there's medi-wizards…"

"…looks bad, doesn't it? Who'd've believed it?"

"…the deputy _Head_ knocked out… what that'll mean…"

"…dented his face, or something."

"I think he always looked like that…"

"I'm not knocked out," Ron told them thickly, cracking an eye open. It was too dark to see, but he could feel people crowding around him, poking and prodding like curious kittens. He sat up and they all drew back with a collective gasp.

"I don't think…" someone said uncertainly.

"You should stay still," someone else told him with more authority. "Risa's gone looking for help."

"I'm fine," Ron insisted distractedly. There was something very important he had to finish, something of dire urgency. But he couldn't remember. He raised a hand to his forehead and felt something sticky and warm there. "What happened?" He was mostly talking to himself, but someone practically leapt to answer.

"Explosion," they reeled off in a fast voice that reminded him of his wife. "Two, actually. No one knows where exactly. Half the alley's destroyed. Merry saw fires on the other side of the street. You're safe here, though, don't worry, Mr. Weasley – er, Deputy Head, sir."

Someone was trying to push him back down, but Ron brushed off the hand impatiently. Memory was flooding back to him. Diagon Alley, Cry o' the Raven, Hugo and Lily. He stood abruptly. "Where's the way out?"

"Way out? Please, sir, you ought to sit down. Your head –"

"I told you, I'm _fine_." After everything else he'd survived, he'd be damned if a bloody shopping trip did him in. "Where's the bloody exit?"

They tried to argue, but when he paid no attention and began putting them to better use as handrails to feel his way through the dark, they seemed to understand that he wasn't waiting for Risa and her healer.

"You'd be trampled to death right now if I hadn't dragged your sorry, unconscious arse in here," someone grumbled, but by then someone else had cracked a door open and let a stream of light through to guide him out.

He gagged on the first breath of hot, sooty air, stumbling into the queer orange light and roaring noise. His rescuers hadn't been wrong; everywhere he looked was carnage, and for a moment he was utterly disoriented. But then he started to recognize some of the buildings that were still standing, catch glimpses of charred signs.

He stood almost exactly where he'd been when everything erupted. To his left, the _Prophet _office was reeling, bricks raining down as it seemed to flail backwards. To his right, smoke billowed so thickly out of the entrance to Knockturn Alley, he couldn't see the rest of the alley beyond. The noise and sense of an invisible, massing crowd came from the other side of the smoke, but Ron couldn't see a soul around. If there had been a trampling mob here, they had gone quickly.

Fragments of glitterin, magical records gilded the cobbles as if the street were made of gold, but the little record shop was blackened shell of a building. And right in front of him… right in front of him, Cry o' the Raven was all ablaze, the fire silhouetting its bones.

Ron took a staggering step forward, feeling as if he were being trampled all over again. There was no way in. The door, the windows, they were all collapsed. As he watched, a lick of flame shot up through one of the stuffed ravens perched on the melting sign. It flapped its wings and loosed a shriek that seemed to linger in the air as it burned.

**A/N: I promise, in a few chapters, there will be far fewer cliffhangers. Probably. Anyway, just wanted to ask quickly if anyone checked out my updates section on my profile and saw the two teasers I put up. I'm going to be doing that, particularly when I'm getting close to updating, so if I'm killing you with all this mortal peril, check that out. Oh, and P.S. having consumed two and a half books in George R.R. Martin's **_**A Song of Ice and Fire **_**series just in the last two months, I no longer feel cruel because of anything I've written or could ever write. This is practically fluff compared to that. **

**Well, hoping to talk to you soon. **


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